Ten years earlier…

I plucked up my courage and stepped in front of Alison as we filed out of the Year Nine Civics class on the last day of term before the winter holidays. In my hand was a handwritten note, folded up. I called for her attention and thrust the note into her hand with a half-ways smile. “Hey,” I said with a slight quiver, “read this when you get a chance.”

Alison was my first real, big crush. Smart, sophisticated and – to my eyes – drop-dead gorgeous, she was the perfect blend of brains and beauty. Wavy brunette hair cut about her shoulders and a cherubic face with eyes that looked like they were perennially squinting, as though she should have been wearing glasses. Our school had no strict dress code but her favourite outfit of a navy jumper over a white shirt, green tartan skirt and opaque tights screamed ‘school uniform’. For someone who looked so bookish, she was at ease with the cool kids in our year level.

Yet she seemed to be rather cold towards me. Our friendship groups never overlapped, and usually spent recesses at opposite ends of the school. In the one class we shared, she would sit as far as possible from me, and during group work, would always end up in a different grouping to me. And while I always paid attention whenever Alison was asked to read aloud or present to the class, I could swear that she was rolling her eyes or trying to distract herself whenever I spoke in class.

We literally did not speak a single word to each other in the two terms of our subject. But I was still besotted with her – probably more so because she refused to acknowledge my existence. With only one chance before the two-week break I decided to let her know how I felt: out of fear of freezing in front of her, I decided to write a note rather than tell her aloud.

She took hold of the note with a short and sweet, “thank you,” and tucked it between her books as we headed off to our last classes for the day. After school I looked out for Alison but did not see her; I figured I could always find out next term, by which time she would have definitely had the chance to read my note.

That was until the first day of the following term when I spotted Alison on the way to school. She was waiting at a bus stop, wearing the uniform of a nearby private school. My heart immediately sank knowing that I was no longer going to see her at school, let alone find out what she thought about what I wrote to her. Over the days that followed my blue mood got deeper as I entertained the possibility that she may have asked to change schools as a result of my note. Had I suddenly jumped from being awkward around her to being downright creepy in one simple act? Had I turned into the sort of person that parents would warn their daughters about?

The current day…

Life had worked out okay for the most part. A decent entry rank after high school meant I got my choice of university course, an urban planning degree which I attained with honours. A well-paying job in the Victorian public service that allowed me to continue with post-graduate studies. An apartment close to the centre of Melbourne, where I could literally stagger home from anywhere worth going to at night. Reasonably active on the weekends, and with a good group of friends who look out for me – and I look out for them.

But as for that special someone… well, not so much. I managed to recover after Alison upped and left and finally found love the following year. The problem was nothing seemed to last: a couple of months here, a few months there. I managed to lose my virginity before I finished Year Twelve, but that girl decided to move interstate to study and we couldn’t make the relationship work long distance. University meant more opportunities to socialise, but now I had some one-night stands to add to the record.

Things looked to have turned not long after I turned twenty-one when I met Shannon. The two of us were head over heels in love with each other, and we moved quickly to live as one. Too quickly, in hindsight. The apartment that I currently live in is a legacy of my time with Shannon: we jointly leased the place and set about establishing ourselves as the stereotypical dual-income-no-kids couple. Something happened after a year together, though.

Her father, who lived in Adelaide, had gotten ill and she had travelled over to be with him. When he passed away, I came over for the funeral where Shannon announced that she wanted to end things with me. While I suspect there was more crying from her family over the loss of a loved one, my tears over losing Shannon felt like they would have run a close second. To her credit, she agreed to forfeit her half of the bond on the apartment so I could take over the lease outright, along with all the large items of furniture. To her deficit, I later found out that she gave birth to a child nine months after we split up – and I was not the father.

So it was that, as Melbourne descended into another three months of drizzle commonly referred to as Winter, I was alone again. Comfortable, but not comfortably alone.

It was a typical Friday night at the pub down the street from my place. Public servants, political staffers and students filled the bar, downing drinks and talking. A room full of ‘business casual’ attire and wool blend jackets. The first lot talking trash about the second, the second talking trash about the first, and the third lot talking trash about the other two while making designs to follow in both of their footsteps. Being Melbourne, there was at least one television showing the night’s football game and, true to form, the team from the suburb the pub was located in was doing poorly.

I was gathered with a few friends from my department as part of the end-of-week ritual of bagging out the department heads and moaning about policy while slowly getting anaesthetised. Having had ideas of getting on my bicycle the following morning I was pacing my drinks to minimise a hangover. Eventually, though, it was my shout and I headed for the bar.

I stepped up next to a young woman with wavy brunette hair cut above her shoulders, wearing a long coat over a fitted blouse and skirt, who must have been given the same task by her crew, with the added complication of a laundry list of mixed drinks. As her orders were served up and mine were about to be taken, I could see that she was anxious about spilling the tray. I advised the barman, “Four pots of Furphy and a Coke, and,” glancing at the woman as I pointed my debit card towards the bar, “I’ll be back once I’ve given a hand.”

The barman took my card as I took the tray of drinks and looked to the woman, awaiting direction. “Thanks for that,” she said, “I reckon I could have made a mess of it.” It was then I noticed her face before she turned to lead the way through the crowd.

“You look familiar. Didn’t you go to Eltham High?” I asked her.

“Yeah, briefly,” she replied.

We reached her spot where a mixed group were gathered. I recognised some of them: they had lived nearby me but had gone to private schools, their faces known from the assembly of kids at the local station where the caravan of charter buses to the prestigious schools over the river. I placed the tray of drinks down before quipping, “So, what is this? The Association of Independent Schools’ alumni night?” An ironic cheer went up from the group.

I thrust out my hand to the woman. “Anton,” I introduced myself. “And you are?”

“Alison,” she answered as she shook my hand.

“Oh, shit. You moved to the college, didn’t you?”

“Yep.”

Just then, one of her friends got my attention. “Mate, barman wants you.”

I went back to the bar to retrieve my card and ferry drinks back to my friends. As I stood there sipping on my Coke I kept looking over to Alison’s group. We had talked as I carried her drinks than we had in the time we were in high school together. She kept looking over to my group, sometimes flashing a smile. She then left her group before turning a corner towards where the toilets were located. I turned back to my friends and finished my drink. Just as I put down my empty glass, I felt a hand on my shoulder; I turned around and Alison was standing there.

“Hi there. Who are these guys?”

“Oh, this is the state Annoying NIMBYs with Vital Infrastructure Authority.” After the group stopped laughing, I completed introductions, referring to Alison as. “a girl I went to school with.” She then asked me if I wanted to sit alone with her and talk; after ordering drinks for the two of us I lead her to a side room of the pub where only a few people were sitting.

Alison had studied law: she had an interest in consumer law and was working as a paralegal for an accident replacement hire care firm assisting on cases where insurance companies refused to pay. While she had seen wealth and privilege while she was at Eltham College and at university, her job had exposed her to people who were in a less fortunate position. “That’s why I wanted to sit with you. They were going on about plebs and povvo people and I got sick of it.”

I finished my drink and got up. “It was good to see you. I’m heading home early, if you don’t mind,” I told her.

“Where are you headed?” She asked.

“I only live up the street. You want to join me?”

“Yeah. Pub’s getting too loud for me now.”

I said bye to my friends, with a few off-colour remarks about leaving with a girl in response. Alison made to leave the pub without passing her friends, prompting a shout of “Where are you going?” from one of the old school tie set.

“Oi, we run the state, and don’t you forget it!” I shouted back as we quickly left the pub.

Alison and I walked up the street in the drizzle towards my apartment. I finally got the courage to ask her about her hasty departure from my school. She answered that her parents wanted her to go to a private school all along, but it was a bit too expensive for her family; the moment her father got a job promotion and pay rise they enrolled her, and she moved the next term. She only told a few friends of hers during the last week of term, which was why I was none the wiser.

We reached the foyer door to my place and asked Alison if she wanted to come up for a drink; she took up my offer and we rode the lift up to the eighth floor, exchanging only a few words. We entered my apartment and quickly removed our coats, hanging them over the backs of the stools at the kitchen bench. I invited her to sit down on the couch as I pulled an opened bottle of wine out of the fridge and poured two glasses, handing one to Alison as I sat down next to her.

As we looked out of the tiny apartment across the inner suburbs of Melbourne while sipping on our drinks, Alison pulled her purse out of her bag. She then unzipped a compartment and pulled out a folded-up piece of lined paper, which she then opened up fully. “Do you remember this, Anton?”

“Oh my God.” I wave of panic washed over me. “Have you kept it all this time?”

She began reading it out:

Dear Alison,

I am not sure how to say this, so I apologise if this sounds awkward: I want to be your friend. I realise that we do not talk at all to each other at any time, and you seem to act aloof when I make my presence known to you. I would like to think that this is not something you have chosen to do deliberately and on your own, but either because my presence is confronting or that you have been told by others that I am not to be engaged with.

I may, or may not, have feelings for you, but that is not why I am reaching out to you. I just want you to know that I offer my friendship to you. When I see you next, I will offer my right hand in fellowship to you, and my hope is that you gladly take it and offer to be my friend – no more, no less.

Yours in humanity,

Anton.

Alison’s voice was breaking by the end, and tears had welled in her eyes. I also felt teary, along with a sense of panic from being called out for my actions. I got in a response first: “Christ, I was fourteen when I wrote that. It was juvenile. I thought you had begged your parents to move schools over that.”

Alison managed to compose herself. “I didn’t read it until much later when I was clearing out my schoolbag just before starting at the College. My first thought was that I would not have the chance to respond, mainly because you left no contact details. Later, though, I read it after a guy I was seeing said something awful about kids from Eltham High, and I thought it was the most beautiful thing I have ever read. I’ve been surrounded by emboldened people for ten years: emboldened by money, by status, by privilege. Your note reminds me that there are beautiful minds everywhere, even when we are told to ignore them, and I thank you for that, Anton.”

The simple act of her saying my name set something off inside me. “No, thank you for saying so, Alison.” I broke down and wept. “The thing was when I wrote that I had real feelings for you. A beautiful mind in a beautiful body. I wanted to be with you not just because I was attracted to you but because your presence made me want to be smarter. Made me want to be better. But I didn’t want to be creepy or anything, I wanted to be your friend first. I didn’t want to make the first move in case I weirded you out, but you seemed to have no interest in me, so I wrote that. And I really thought I had weirded you out to the point of switching schools.” I was a blubbering mess.

“No, it was nothing to do with you.” Alison put her arms around me and comforted me. Our faces drew up to each other’s and she looked into my eyes. “Did you actually have a crush on me?”

“Yes,” I said. “My first, and it was a bad one.”

“You know what? I might have at least given you a second look back then.” She leaned in and kissed me on the lips. “Whenever I read that note I wonder how good a person you would have been to be with.”

I kissed her back. “You are still a beautiful mind in a beautiful body,” I whispered.

“I take it you would like a variation on the ‘no more’ part of your offer, then.”

“Only if that’s okay with you.”

“I have no objection.” She then nodded in the direction of my bedroom, which led off the lounge area through a large sliding door that I usually left open. “Care to lead me?”

I got up from the couch and took Alison’s hand, leading her to my bed. We kicked off our shoes and stood kissing before we started undoing each other’s buttons, pushing off my shirt and her blouse upon completion. I then unbuckled my belt and dropped my trousers whilst she unzipped her skirt and let it drop before scrambling to remove her tights. We then climbed up on the bed and laid down together, my hands paying as much attention to her black satin bra as to her soft skin.

I looked Alison in the face, and she was wearing a sweet smile. I remember having seen her smile or laugh in high school – but never towards me, only others. I had only ever seen her look at me with the graven face of an Easter Island statue; to have her smile at me made my heart sing.

We began kissing with such great passion, first sucking on each other’s lips in repeated bursts before opening our mouths and letting our tongues play around in the moist, warm combined space we created. I then broke off Alison’s mouth and began making a trail of kisses down her chin, neck and chest, finishing in her cleavage. She then raised herself up and reached behind to unclasp her bra, deftly removing it to reveal the perky C-cup rack she had only just began developing when I last saw her. As she laid back down and we resumed kissing, I began tracing my fingertip around first one nipple, bring it to erection before repeating my teasing on the other nipple.

By now my cock was rigid to the point of threatening to burst out of my briefs, and a noticeable damp spot caused by my pre-come had developed on them. Alison ran her hand across my stomach and drop the front of my briefs, taking hold of my seven inches and trying to wank me in the limited space my underwear provided. I rose up to pull the constricting garment down my legs and off my feet, setting my member free and giving her a visual to accompany her feeling of my cock.

She then let go and responded in kind by removing her satin knickers to reveal a trimmed bush above a pink, juicy pussy. We resumed kissing and she resumed pulling on my cock while I slid my hand down and began rubbing on her pink zone, using my thumb to stimulate her clit while my index and middle fingers toyed first with her labia and then inside her pussy. Her dampness increased noticeably as I began to finger-fuck her, and she began to make noises as we kept kissing, the vibration of her mouth turning me on even more.

A moan from Alison saw here break off our kissing. “Please, Anton, let me welcome you,” she said breathily. “I want you inside me.” She rolled onto her back and spread her legs, and I climbed over her to lie between her legs. As I lined my cock up to her waiting pussy I looked once again into her eyes, looking for a clear sign of consent.

“Are you sure, Alison?” I asked. “I will only be happy if you are happy.”

“Yes, Anton. I know you have been waiting ten years for this, and so have I.”

I pressed my knob lightly on her folds. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this but I love you, Alison.” I then slowly pushed my cock into her as I watched her mouth gape open from the new stimulation, stopping once I was fully inside her.

“Oh, that feels good. Yes, Anton, I love you too.” I pulled back and began gently fucking her, settling into a loving rhythm. With previous lovers, I would have moved on to banging them harder straight away but I wanted to give Alison sustained loving, living up to the ideals that my note had suggested. Also, after all those years apart, I wanted to take in her beautiful face as much as possible: going in hard would have meant burying my face into her shoulder.

We kept kissing as I thrust in and out of her until she started making the unmistakable sounds of her approaching orgasm. “Go harder, please Anton,” she implored me, so I picked up my pace as she came moaning and her pussy pulsed around my cock.

Alison then asked me to get off her. As I laid back on the bed, she moved herself down and drew her head up to my cock. She took a hold of my member and licked the very tip of my marinated knob before sliding her red lips down my shaft, flickering her tongue around my cock in the process before bobbing her head. I let out a moan: I had been sucked off plenty of times before, but this was a completely different class of blowjob as her tongue explored and stimulated every element of my knob.

I looked down to watch the show and I was amazed at the sight. The cherubic face that first attracted me to her a decade prior, that smiled for others but never for me, that may or may not have been present in masturbation fantasies and wet dreams at the height of my crush on her, now had my cock moving in and out of it and was clearly enjoying it.

Aware that she was foregoing her own pleasure for mine, I took hold of Alison’s head and lifted it out of my dick. “Hey, let me look after you as well,” I offered before asking her to turn around and straddle my head. She lowered her crotch into my face and I began licking around her folds as she then lowered her face back into my crotch and resumed sucking me off. Aware of the high bar her tongue work had set further down on me I got to work on her clit with my tongue and my lips, alternatively lashing her little man and sucking on it.

I then moved down and lapped at her pussy, driving my tongue deep into her hole on occasions. From the other end, I could not only hear the moans of pleasure my actions were prompting but I could feel them transmitted from her mouth onto my cock. I then returned to sucking on her clit, slipping my fingers into her pussy to add to the stimulation. Soon I could hear and feel Alison starting to come again, and I could feel my self headed the same way. I sang out my warning of impeding ejaculation and she responded by sucking harder; when I exploded in her mouth she quickly swallowed my load while squealing in her own orgasm as I licked and prodded her pink bits throughout.

Alison dismounted me and turned around before draping her body on one side of mine. By complete accident, we both said together, “How are you so good at that? We broke into laughter, and I took the moment to take in and enjoy the creases in her face as she laughed, once again remembering that I never had the chance to see them first-hand all of those years ago. We then kissed passionately again, the sweet taste of her mouth now augmented by the slight salty bitterness of my come from before.

Before too long I was hard again and Alison moved to straddle me once more, this time assuming a cowgirl position. Having lined my cock up to her entrance she suddenly dropped her self down, driving me deep into her in one move and forcing me to exhale at once.

As she moved up and done and around on me, I took in the view of her body. Not too skinny, curves in the right places, her C-cup tits remaining perky. It felt like I had fallen into one of my teenage wet dreams, fully expecting to wake up in my bed accompanied by nothing other than a sticky mess on the sheets. Instead, I had Alison rising above me, gently riding on my cock.

I asked her why she decided to come home with me, and if she had sought me out. Alison said that she had caught up with someone from my school year level in the course of her work, and when my name was mentioned, they let slip where I could usually be found drinking on a Friday night. Her appearance that night was half by chance: she had been out to dinner earlier with friends close by and managed to convince them to kick on at the pub, much to the annoyance of a couple of the crew who preferred a cocktail bar instead. One of the complainants, the guy who mouthed off at me when we left the pub, had been on-again-off-again with Alison for some time; she finally wanted to end things with him, despite the potential to lose other friends, and I provided the perfect escape.

 She then lowered her body onto mine, now moving up and down using her hips. After exchanging a few kisses, she confessed that she had tried to seek me out later in our high school years. She remembered seeing me whilst at the bus stop on that first day of term at the college and had hoped to see me again and tell me what she felt, but whenever the opportunity came up she would get shy and not say anything. I responded that I could have said hello to her but that I feared she would have called the police on me.

“Oh God, Anton, you’re so silly,” Alison said between sighs.

“Seriously,” I said, “I was scared to see you after that. Besides, you’d have another guy easily.”

She stopped actively fucking me, only making small movements. “Not really,” she replied softly. Alison opened up about her love life: a string of guys, all of them from private schools, most of them from wealthy families and nearly all of them believing they were better people than they actually were. “If you reckon boys don’t play with dolls, you should see how some of them treated me. Toted around, pampered, used for comfort, used for pleasure and, when next year’s model arrived, left out in the rain.” Mr Lippy from the pub had been doing her head in but she kept returning to him because, despite being a spoilt jerk, he bothered to try to keep things going.

“Now I fear becoming the same sort of jerk,” I said.

“I am sure you are better. What I remember of you is that you were better than your popularity suggested. I should have crossed the yard back in high school, but I feared losing my friends.”

“So, here you are again. Choosing between your friends and your heart.” I began to buck upwards, wanting to resume lovemaking. “Follow your heart – we can work on the friends,” I said. “I just remember that I love you, and I want to be there for you as much as you need or want.”

Alison kissed me and began moving more herself. “Thank you,” she said. “I love you too. You deserve love, and I want to give it to you.” Her sighs and moans returned. “Now, I want to really feel you in me. Please, Anton, fuck me.” I took the cue to start thrusting into her hard, no longer wanting to hold back. Her tits began to swing back and forth, and her hair was also bobbing and flying around. Our hip movements were now timed to cause maximum penetration on each thrust.

Soon the room was filled with the sound of the two of us moaning and grunting as we fucked, backed by the dark and damp vista of Melbourne outside. Alison’s moans soon increased in pitch, signalling that she was about to come again. Soon I would also feel myself about to lose control, and as she came with a bout of violent contractions around my cock I could no longer contain myself and I released my load deep into her pussy, now holding my thrust to keep depositing as deep as possible.

I held on to Alison tightly for the longest time, breathing her in, bathing in the feel of her body against mine. My cock soon became limp and slid out of her pussy, and I responded by moving my head to put my face to hers and kissing her deeply. When we finally broke, I whispered, “I love you, Alison, my cherub from the college.”

“And I love you, Anton, my big-hearted boy from the High School,” she whispered back. She dismounted me and laid down on the bed, facing away from me and looking out the window as the rain hit the glass. I snuggled up against her back and gently stroked her hair until she fell asleep, and then drifting into slumber myself.

My alarm sounded at seven the following morning. The rain had eased but the city was still under a heavy mid-winter gloom. I pulled Alison in tighter to me, taking in the smell of her hair. She soon stirred and asked, “Weren’t you going to go for a ride today?”

“Might give it a miss and go tomorrow,” I replied. “I’ve got someone more important right now.” I kissed the back of her neck as we snuggled in for a weekend sleep-in.

Three years later…

Alison and I became inseparable after that night. After what had happened with Shannon, I didn’t want to have her move in straight away, but when the time came for her to move house we decided to throw our lot in together. While I had been contemplating moving else we decided to renew the lease on my apartment – our apartment – and soon it changed from the bachelor pad of old into a proper home.

Alison decision to leave the loudmouthed private school guy did mean her losing contact with some of her friends initially, but eventually, some of them came back and have become closer friends since. In the meantime, I introduced her to my circle of friends and even got her back in touch with some of my old school mates from the High School. She even admonished some of her friends from her time at the High School for warning them off me back then.

While I’m still working for the State Government, I have just finished my doctoral thesis on urban planning. To celebrate turning in my thesis we hosted a barbeque with our friends in the rooftop garden of our apartment block. As the last of the guests left, I began clearing up the aftermath. As Alison took the leftover food inside, I handed her a folded note and said, “Read this when you get a chance.” Once she put the food down in our apartment, she opened the note up and began to read it:

Dear Alison,

I am not sure how to say this, so I apologise if this sounds awkward: I want to continue to be a part of your life. Every day I am thankful for your love, and I forever strive to be worthy of your love. I love you deeply, and I hope that you feel and appreciate how much I love you. I see the joy that I bring to your life and I feel the joy you bring to mine. I just want you to know that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. When I see you next, I will offer you to marry me, and my hope is that you gladly take it and offer to be my eternal love – no more, no less.

Yours in love and humanity,

Anton.