Graham, Just One Shade

by Guy Lilburne

  I had been so captivated by my Irish Princess. The ‘girl at the bar’. Her real name was Mary O’Toole, but just to protect her identity, I’ll call her Mary Murphy.

  “I just wanted you to know that I’ve already fucked him, and if you are going to fuck him I hope you catch something nasty” snarled Maureen. Without hesitation Mary replied,

  “Well, if I catch something nasty from him, it will be because he caught it off you.”

  Everybody around us had heard what had been said, and amongst a few gasps and blokes cheering, they all laughed. Maureen turned and walked out of the bar, quickly followed by her friend. Mary grabbed my hands.

  “Please tell me you used a condom” she said.

  “Of course” I lied.

  “Thank fuck!”

  “Feck or fuck?”

  “Fuck.”

  I thought that she was amazing. Her personality was huge. She was so much more than just the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen, and we both really seemed to like each other. I couldn’t believe that this was happening to me. I felt 10 feet tall, confident and attractive, and it was all thanks to Mary.

  She introduced me to her friends, and we all talked together for some time. I was the centre of attention and I just seemed to be on a roll. I was funny and charming and it was just one of those nights when I just couldn’t say anything wrong. Mary kept telling me how nice looking I was and how my aloofness had attracted a lot of women in the bar. I decided that I was going to have to practice this aloofness. It was obviously powerful stuff. Mary said that she was delighted to be sitting with me and that she thought that she was the envy of all the other girls in the bar. I just laughed. I was still trying to work out what was aloof about me. I was no better looking than any other bloke in the place; in fact, not as nice looking as many of them and a lot older than most. Yet, by some miracle of god, the girl of my dreams, more beautiful than I could have imagined, fancied the pants off me!

  At about 4:00 am her friends were ready to leave and asked Mary if she was going with them. She looked deep into my eyes and held my hands again.

  “Will you walk me home?”

  “Yes of course. I would be delighted.”

  “Nothing is going to happen. Just walk me home.”

  “I’ve got more class than that. I’m a gentleman.”

  “I know you are.” She turned to her friends. “I’ll stay with Graham.”

  Her friends leaned in towards her.

  “Mary, he’s fecking gorgeous.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  I couldn’t believe they were talking about me, but they were. During our conversation I had told Mary that I was only an area manager for a superstore chain, but she just said that she wasn’t bothered. She didn’t know why, but she really like me and, anyway, it was only going to be a ‘holiday romance’.

  “…….Sure you won’t even know me in another month!” The Irish bluntness has a delicious charm to it that captures the hearts of people from countries all over the world. How was I ever going to resist it? I think it’s a charm that the Irish know they have and they use it mercilessly. Why not!

  We left the bar and strolled around Playa hand in hand for the next three hours. We sat on benches. We talked. We kissed a lot. It really was one of those nights in your life when you wish it would just go on forever.

  At about 7:30 am we were outside her apartment saying our goodbyes. An hour later we were still saying goodbye. We didn’t want to leave each other so we decided to go and get some breakfast and a coffee. I finally left Mary outside her apartment at about 10.30 am. I walked back to Maspalomas along the beach, some 40 minutes’ walk. I was enjoying the hot sunshine and the naked women. As I walked I relived every moment of the previous night over again in my mind. People passing me must have wondered ‘who is that idiot walking along smiling to himself’. I couldn’t help it, I was really very, very happy with myself. We had arranged to meet at 9.00 pm that night to go for a meal.

  I got back to my apartment, got my shorts and went to the pool. I was exhausted but too excited to sleep, something good was happening in my life.

  I slept on and off around the pool again and couldn’t wait for the other lads to appear so I could tell them all about it. I was a bit disappointed when they didn’t seem very surprised, and really not at all bothered. Didn’t they realise how important this was? It cheered me up when Gary said, “She is very beautiful. I’m very happy for you. I think you’ll make a lovely couple.”

  I went to make the date at about 8.30 pm and was surprised that I had no doubt that she would turn up. At 9.00 pm on the dot she showed up in the plaza next to the Irish centre. She was radiant and beamed a huge smile. God! She looked fantastic. She hugged me and we kissed. She spoke excitedly. “Jesus! I didn’t think you would show up. I told my friends I’d be back in 10 minutes.”

  “Are you mad? I’d have been mad not to show.”

  We had a fantastically romantic evening. We went around a few bars, found a quiet restaurant and had a candle lit dinner. We talked as if we were old friends catching up on old times and the sexual chemistry between us grew and grew. We both thought that our attraction for each other was amazing. I was even aware of all the attention that we were getting from men and women in every place that we walked into. Mary didn’t seem to notice. She must have been used to it, but to me it was something new. It made me feel good about myself and incredibly lucky to be with a woman like Mary. How can someone so beautiful be so down to earth? Her looks seemed unimportant to her. Maybe when you are so attractive it doesn’t matter. Just like money isn’t important when you are so rich.

  We bumped into her friends around midnight and chatted for a while. They seemed happy to see me and seemed happy for Mary. We left them after an hour and I asked Mary if she wanted to come back to my apartment, or if she preferred we could just walk around all night again. She wanted to come back to my apartment. We got a taxi and when we got back we sat on the balcony with a vodka and chatted for a while. Mary was concerned that it might be too soon to sleep together and I said I would sleep on the settee. She could have my bed. I really liked her and I wasn’t going to do anything to ruin it. She didn’t say anything to my offer and after another hour we agreed it was time for bed. I asked her if she wanted me to sleep on the settee. She smiled and kissed me and said ‘no’. She said she would use the bathroom first and then asked for me to give her a few minutes to get into bed before coming in. She disappeared into the bathroom. I punched the air. I wanted to shout out ‘Oh yes!’ over the balcony, but I stopped myself. I didn’t think that Mary would think it very aloof or cool. She went into the bedroom and I went into the bathroom. I cleaned my teeth and looked at myself in the mirror. “You lucky bastard!” I whispered to my reflection, which smiled back and nodded in agreement.

  When I went into the bedroom she was sitting up in bed. The sheet wrapped around her. She was still wearing her little blue dress. She looked shy and nervous. She looked vulnerable. I smiled at her. She looked so cute.

  “Mary I’m going to sleep on the settee. We don’t have to rush into anything here. It’s OK. You get a good night’s sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.” I turned to leave the room.

  “Please don’t go.”

  “You look frightened to death.”

  “No I’m fine. I’m just shy. Can we turn the lights out?”

  I turned the lights out.

  “Are you going to get undressed or do you want me to go and put a coat on?”

  “I’m getting undressed.”

  She got out of bed and we undressed in the dark. I could see her silhouetted against the window as she stripped. We stood naked, wrapped in each other’s arms, kissing as our eyes adjusted to the dim light from outside. Her body was slim and firm. Her stomach muscles were taught. The dull heavy thro
bbing between my legs grew into a powerful erection that pressed against her. I laid her back onto the bed and kissed her neck, softly. I moved my mouth down over her body, just my breath on her smooth skin, over her breasts, her stomach. I gently pulled her legs open and kissed her thighs. I parted the lips of her vagina and flicked her clitoris with my tongue.

  I think I was expecting moans and groans and a bit of pelvic wriggling, but there was nothing, no movement and no sound.

  “Are you OK?” I whispered into her vagina, but intending the question for Mary.

  “Graham I don’t like all this fancy, licky stuff. Just finger me will you!”

  “What?”

  “Just finger me. I like it hard and fast.”

  I think I was a bit shocked. Now wasn’t the time for charming Irish bluntness. To me love making is an art. It should start off gently and slowly and be played out like a symphony, building in intensity and ending in a crescendo of crashing symbols, emotion and feelings. Not just a quick bang on the drums.

  “Oh!” I said.

  I started teasing her clitoris with my finger, gently and seductively.

  “For Christ sake just finger me will ya. Hard, do it hard.”

  I rammed my fingers in hard. She was wet.

  “Harder,” she ordered.

  I did it harder and the harder I did it the more she shouted “Harder.” I just didn’t find it sexy at all. It didn’t feel like a sexy seductive masturbation. It felt like I was thumping a punch bag and it just went on and on.

  She was shouting “Harder, harder ya fecker!”

  I was sweating and my arm started aching. Where had my gentle Irish Princess gone?

  As a distraction, and to give my arm a rest I kissed her breasts.

  “Suck them,” she ordered. So I did.

  “Harder.”

  So I did.

  “Harder ya fecker.”

  I was sucking as hard as I could. I felt a mild wave of panic come over me. This was becoming hard work. I wasn’t making love to her, I was beating her up.

  “Bite them,” she gasped. Now that sounded a bit more like a moan and groan than a demand, I bit her as gently as I could.

  “Harder, bite me harder.”

  Now I was getting worried. I didn’t like this. We all have a threshold and I think I had just crossed mine. I really liked the girl. I didn’t want to damage her. She dug her nails deep into my back.

  “Owww! Holy fuck!” I screamed. Now even I was sounding Irish.

  “Bite me harder.”

  I was gnoring away at her tits like a scrapyard dog. I was biting and sucking and I was in a lot of pain from her nails tearing into my skin. I could taste blood in my mouth. I didn’t know if I had broken the skin on her boobs or if my own gums were bleeding from sucking so hard.

  “Fuck me Graham.”

  Now that’s a saying that I’ve always been delighted to hear, but on this occasion I was really worried.

  I kneeled between her legs, pulled her pelvis up towards me and rammed myself into her as hard as I could.

  “I know” I said “harder, harder.”

  “Yes harder. Fuck me harder.”

  I fucked her harder until her head was pushed up against the wall and banging against the plaster. I banged into her with all the power I could muster. The sweat was dripping off me. I didn’t find it exciting or erotic and it wasn’t sexy at all. To be honest, I could have fucked her all night long because I had already lost all feeling in my penis and I was never going to cum in a month of Sundays. Mary seemed lost in the moment and was now shouting “Hurt me!” which made a refreshing change from “Harder.”

  It’s amazing how the pressure on you to perform increases when someone is shouting at you all the time “Hurt me ya fecker” and “Harder ya fecker.”

  My mind started to wander and I was trying to think of ways to ‘hurt her’.

  I was getting tired and thought about just head butting her, or just punching her fucking lights out and ending this ordeal, but it wasn’t my idea of romance.

  Suddenly, and not a moment too soon, she grabbed my chest. Her nails like talons sinking into my skin and ripping down to my stomach.

  “Fuck! I’m cumming” she screamed.

  I just screamed. She let go of me and fell back “Oh my god” she said.

  “Have you just cum too?”

  “Yes” I lied and lay down next to her, exhausted, battered and bruised. She fell asleep in my arms. I lay awake with the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my bed, thinking about the worst sex I had ever had. I comforted myself with the thought that it could only get better. I would have to teach her the ways of a more gentle form of sex, where nobody would get injured.

  In the morning I looked at her breasts. What a mess they were; bitten and marked and I felt terrible that I had done it to her. I got up and went to the bathroom to check myself in the mirror. What a mess, I was scratched and scarred and I felt terrible that she had done it to me.

  I woke Mary with a cup of tea. She was a different girl. She was lovely and gentle. She kissed me and hugged me tenderly.

  “You were fantastic last night” she said.

  “So were you” I lied again.

  I spent the rest of the holiday with Mary. The lads all went home on the following Monday but I didn’t mind at all. I was falling in love with Mary and she was falling in love with me.

  We had sex every day. We could have had more but I tried to avoid it. The sex never really got any better. It was always rough, bordering on violent. I just went through the motions, but I was falling in love with her. Everything else about her was just fantastic, and every day I learned more about her. Psychologically she carried a lot of baggage. She was abused from childhood, not sexually, but emotionally and physically. Her mother thought she was the devil’s child and hated her with a passion. She remembered severe beatings from both parents at an early age, although none of her siblings suffered anything like that sort of treatment. She was locked away in rooms and generally treated appallingly, often not being allowed to eat at the same table with the rest of the family. I’m no psychologist, but I think her mum must have been crackers. Maybe this all explained her violent sexual tendencies. It filled me with sadness, but made me love her even more. I wanted to rescue her from herself and protect her. And I believed that I was just the man to do it.

  Mary thought I was amazing, such a gentleman and an animal in the bedroom. Maybe one day I would be able to tell her that I wasn’t such an animal.

  Mary went home two days before I was due to leave. I wrote her a long letter to read on the plane, and saying goodbye was very hard. Without her, Gran Canaria wasn’t such a great place and I couldn’t wait to go home. We had already planned that I would go and see her in Dublin a few weeks later at the end of May. I couldn’t wait. I missed her.

  My sister picked me up from the airport and told me about what a state Mandy was in. Mandy had been to see my family and told them how desperately in love with me she was. My sister thought that I should give her another chance. I told her it was too late. I didn’t love Mandy anymore and, anyway, I had met someone else.

  When I got back to my mum’s place there were 38 letters waiting for me that Mandy had written in just 14 days. I read them all. She wrote about how much she loved me and how sorry she was. They were all very emotional and dripping in sadness and desperation. She said how she didn’t want to live without me, but the truth was that she would have to. It was sad that Mandy loved me now the way that I once loved her. She had hurt me too many times and the love I once had for her had died a long time ago. I still liked Mandy a lot, but I didn’t love her.

  Mandy turned up at my mum’s place the next morning and I told her it was all over. It really hurt her and I was very sad to cause her
such heartache, but it really was over. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I had met someone new.

  Mary and I phoned each other every day, usually three or four times a day and I wrote her a lot of letters. We arranged that I was to fly over to Dublin on Thursday 23rd May and return here on Monday 27th.

  I had to work an 8.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. shift on the day I was due to go. I had arranged a lift to Birmingham airport to catch an evening Ryanair flight. The day was a normal office type day; the usual paperwork and delivery checks and staff enquiries. At 3.45 p.m. I heard the alarm and the message code which meant we were under attack and it was an armed robbery. The alarm was silent in the store but it came direct to my office and the local police. The offender was wearing a balaclava and dressed all in black. He had threatened one of my staff with a sawn off shotgun that was wrapped in a carrier bag. The female accounts staff member was forced to place £20,000 in bundles of various notes into his holdall and he walked out. Uniform police patrols were racing to the scene and on hearing the report the CID office emptied and all the detectives present also started racing to the scene.

  I said, “If I had just done this robbery I would cut across the fields, go over the rugby club pitches, and come out the other side of town.” I was sort of just thinking out loud really, but the other staff hung onto every word……as if I knew what I was talking about!

  By road it was a good few miles but across the fields it wasn’t far at all, and any sighting of a man in that area of town would not be associated with a robbery at the superstore on the other side of town only minutes before.

  I got a member of staff and we drove out of town in almost the opposite direction to the robbery. I left instructions with the rest of the staff to tell the police where we were going to look for the offender. Moments later we saw a man walking along the rugby club pitch. He was dressed in black and carrying a holdall over his shoulder. My heart started pounding. I knew this was our robber. Marco, who was the biggest and toughest member of staff that I had working at the store, stopped the car and I darted out and jumped the rugby club fence. I started running towards the man. I had already thought that if he pointed his sawn off shotgun at me I would dive to the ground and lay flat in the mud. I was wearing a suit and tie. As I ran towards the man I put my right hand inside my left breast pocket of my jacket. I hoped that he would think I was an armed police officer. He saw me running towards him and as the yards closed down I noticed that he subtly changed his direction so that he was now walking away from me and he increased his pace.