I always loved evenings like this. With mum working a double shift and not due home until late, I could take advantage of a flat all to myself. I enjoyed a long, warming shower, lit my bedroom with sweet-scented candles and squeezed into my favourite pyjamas. The little cotton shorts, the tight pink top falling a couple of inches above my belly button, the white unicorn and rainbow motif across the chest: they belonged to a time much deeper in childhood, but I found comfort in their cosy familiarity.
I plunged into plush, plump pillows, relishing the crispness of fresh linen against clean skin. Stretching like a starfish, I let them cradle my neck and settle around my ears. The day replayed through my mind like a silent movie, and my thoughts settled on Mr Renshaw.
Mr Renshaw. I caught myself smiling whenever I thought of my favourite teacher. A serious-minded, clever man with heavy-hooded eyes and reddish hair. In his late thirties, I guess, he was sweetly shy of eye contact and always removed his glasses and fingered the frame when absorbed in his lectures. His modern history class on revolutionary Russia often took in literary excursions, from Dostoevsky to Nabokov, that fired my mind and inspired my love of all things Russian.
He was also a deeply kind man. The period around dad leaving hit us hard. That winter of 2012, coming to school wearing a heavy, khaki-green parka from a military surplus store was humiliating for a sensitive kid on the frontier of adolescence, but it was all mum could afford. I quietly endured the teasing and bitching from girls in designer coats and expensive sportswear, but somewhere along the way Mr Renshaw must have caught wind of it. He not only complimented, in front of a full class, my 'cool, alternative taste', but used Google Images and his encyclopaedic mind to give an enthusiastic talk on Mod culture of the 1960s.
From that day, I wore that parka with pride and even began exploring some of the music of the scene. The snide remarks didn't exactly stop, but I stopped caring and began to curate a version of myself I believed in, not one that others expected. I often think back to that small act of kindness and the man who gifted me self-confidence when I most needed it.
His kindness continued as I progressed through the sixth form. The many hours he gave up guiding me through my extended essay on the art of the Russian Revolution went way beyond the call of duty. He always found time, patiently reading drafts and listening to my ideas. He pointed me in the direction of invaluable resources and used his knowledge of college systems to secure me a travel grant so that I could visit an exhibition in London. His enthusiasm for Russia and art was infectious, and I felt I had found a kindred spirit.
The student-teacher boundary always held, of course; he was scrupulously professional, and I found something strangely sweet in his comical struggle to look me in the eye or quite reconcile himself to calling me 'Tori'. My friends thought him stuffy and uptight, but they didn't get it. Behind the shyness was a brilliant, selfless, wonderful man; how could anyone not see that?
Even at eighteen, my heart still ached for dad or, at least, the ideal of dad I'd constructed from my own memories and quiet study of friends' families. Mum had had plenty of boyfriends, one or two of them nice guys who stuck around for a while, but I missed the unerring protection and love of a father. I began to project complicated feelings of warmth and jealousy and attraction onto the few men who came into my life. I understood my feelings, at least, but I couldn't control them. I didn't want to.
The truth is, I had begun looking beyond Mr Renshaw's shy quirks and kindness. Whenever he spoke, I found myself transfixed by his mouth: his full, generous lips and light beard flecked with gold, yellow and russet, like a wheatfield in August. His Adam's apple was strong and pronounced, as a man's should be. The bridge of his nose was dusted with a faint galaxy of brown freckles, slightly faded with the passing of time. I had come to love his aftershave, a distinctive blend of smoke and spice that smelled exotic and homely at one and the same time. The plain, silvery band on his left hand was my torturer, tying knots of jealousy and desire in the pit of my stomach each time it caught my glance.
Comfortable and lost to my thoughts, my hand snaked down my body, brushing the soft plateau of my stomach as I settled beneath the sheets. I wet two fingers in my mouth, then slid beneath the waistband of my shorts. Pushing past soft, wispy curls, I found the fleshy outer lips of my flower. Shaping my fingers into a 'v', I gently prised them apart. Dewy moisture rose to the familiar touch.
Shuffling and shifting on my heels, I spread my legs, bent my knees and allowed myself room to explore. I bit my lower lip and sighed, my fingers gliding in tandem along the moistening groove of my pussy. I tentatively rolled back the hood and revealed the soft hardness of my clit.
I massaged slowly and patiently. Breathing hard and staring at the ceiling, I felt the rising flood against my skin. My mind toyed with thoughts of Mr Renshaw. His barrel chest pushing against his tight shirts; two opened buttons revealing a tuft of auburn hair; the unmistakeable bulge in his corduroy trousers, at which I spent entire lessons staring and wondering. My fingers locked in a quickening spiral.
I raised myself from the mattress and wrestled my shorts down my legs. My fingers pushed and padded around my clit and my breaths grew faster and shallower. I felt my nipples harden beneath my top. Warm tingles rippled over my body and sweat perspired from my chest and temples, tickling my skin. I slipped inside my tight opening, slowly curled my fingers and searched for the spongy area some magazine had taught me was my g-spot. Whatever I hit, it was raw and sensitive and made me want to pee. I straightened my fingers instead, settling on a more familiar position and easing them in to the knuckles, using my thumb to rub my clit.
I dragged my free hand along my stomach and over my chest, finding an erect nipple, pert as a raspberry. I pinched, then gasped and flinched; a sublime sharpness shivered through my body. I moaned and threw my head back into the pillows.
Scrunching closed my eyes, I fought to feel him. Scratchy stubble against my face; manly hands moulding my tits; his hard dick in place of my fingers, fucking me. I squealed and writhed, like a helpless animal.
Rolling onto my knees, I planted my face in a pillow and reached beneath my body. I fondled my clit between my fingers, marvelling at its size and hardness. Warm juices drizzled down the back of my hand. I imagined him fucking me like this, vulnerable and open. I had no idea what that might feel like, but the thought brought me closer to the edge. I launched a muffled scream into a pillow, biting down on the dry cotton as my fingers traced an ever-tightening spiral between my legs.
God, I needed him! I sketched his cock in my mind. A smooth, gently-curved length crowned with a fat, pinkish head. The one I remembered from that porn scene. It was perfect.
Gasping and wide eyed, I crawled across the mattress and fumbled open my bottom bedside drawer, pulling from it a violent-pink vibrator. It buzzed urgently, then throbbed as I instinctively reset its tempo to the slow, pulsing rumble I had learnt to love. I squeezed a generous drop of lube onto the head and massaged it into the soft, rubbery shaft.
I threw myself back into the pillows, my legs wide and quivering like butterfly wings. I rolled it down my lower stomach, then my inner thighs, savouring its low hum against the sensitive parts of my skin. I gasped a little as I slipped the tip inside, squeezing past my tight walls. The rabbit ears lapped against my clit as I eased its full length into my hungry pussy.
Lost behind closed eyes, I could sense him with me. The burnt cinnamon aroma of the candles reminded me of his aftershave, and I saw his face and his full lips move to kiss me. I rolled my tongue, desperate to feel his kisses. I tasted the dryness of my mouth and gulped, grasping at my tits as I continued to grind the vibrator between my legs. In my mind, he was making love to me, with sad, kind eyes finally gazing into mine as he breathed my name: 'Victoria'.
I loved the way he said my name; my real name, a name that no one used but him. 'Vic-tor-ia'. Each whispered syllable danced in my ears.
I bucked and squirmed, burying my face in a pillow, the ears strumming ceaselessly. My chest rose and fell with rapid, shallow breaths as I groped at my tits, my pussy walls clamped tight around the low-pulsing shaft.
The corners of my mouth stretched into a wide, painful 'O' and a high, piercing shriek bounced around the room as an outstretched forefinger pressed the ears hard against my clit. My fingers tugged at the sheet and dug into the mattress, down to the springs. My body begged for release and for more: for a perfect moment, a sublime stalemate held.
And then gave way. A kaleidoscope of fragmented images exploded behind my eyes. His averting eyes and sweet smile; his silver ring and open shirt; his golden mouth and curved cock. I replaced the vibrator with two fingers, my thumb circling quickly around my engorged clit. I breathed deeply and deliberately, trying the technique I had read might help retain the hot, rising sensation that washed over my body. I squeezed a hard nipple and the intensity heightened below. My pussy gripped hard on my fingers and I lurched forward, bent double over locked knees as I brought myself to orgasm. My toes curled into the mattress and I screamed into the sheets, my right hand drenched with lust.
Falling back into welcoming pillows, I listened to the flutter of quivering legs and shallow breaths receding into the evening. I pulled the duvet over my face and laughed, my facing burning up in a blush. What was that!
