Chapter 4
The Spencer Orphanage was a modest three-storey building half-way down Claremont Road. One of the attractions for Holly was that it had a bus stop right outside and she could take a single bus from the end of Foley Road straight there, a journey of about ten minutes. The reception desk was manned, as usual, by Jill Mason, who looked up and smiled at Holly as she entered the cramped reception area.
“Holly, you look lovely! Good morning” she said, pausing over her keyboard. Holly wondered if her blouse and skirt really did look lovely or whether the comment applied to her happy face which she always had when entering the home. Either way she was buoyed by the comment.
“Hi Jill, here for the music rehearsal I think”
“Hey, before that, could you look in on Sandy and Jake? It’s the anniversary of their loss, tough day for them.” Jill turned the Visitor’s Book around and Holly signed in.
“Course, I’ll find them, see you later” said Holly, turning for the wide, stone stairs.
The second floor was far noisier than Reception, with children walking along the corridors while chatting animatedly, just as she would expect in any school. Sandy was easy to spot with her short dark hair and bright red dress, but it took a little while to find her brother who was building a house out of Lego. She walked over to the shelves at the end of the classroom, pulled out a couple of books and encouraged Sandy to sit down on a bean bag with her near her brother who was intent on building windows into the structure.
“Hey, shall we read for a little while?” asked Holly, opening the first book. “This is about two kids who visit their friends in the summer holidays.”
Sandy looked at the book, then at Holly. She was ten and her brother was about a year younger. “Holly, why are you here?” she asked.
“Well, I’m supposed to be helping with the music show, but I thought I’d drop by and say hello to you two before that starts,” said Holly, showing the cover to Jake.
They read together for about twenty minutes, alternating one chapter each until they were half way through the book. Jake eyed his Lego building, anxious to continue it as well as protect it from demolition by other children who wanted his bricks. Sandy however was enthralled by the story and drifted against Holly’s shoulder as they took over from Jake’s chapters and just read together, occasionally discussing what they might have done in similar situations as those in the book. Holly knew it was that detail, guidance and those revelations that Sandy cherished far more than the fact that the characters arrived late at their friends’ house. She wondered what they remember of their parents, whether they relived the day that they were taken out of school by a lady from the Police and told that their parents had been badly hurt in a car crash even though they had been pronounced dead at the scene and the drunk driver found face down and semi-conscious in woodland by the side of the road.
Holly touched Jake’s shoulder and said goodbye to him, then hugged Sandy and kissed her head before walking up one more flight of stairs to the auditorium. Several staff members greeted her warmly, thanked her for coming and for all the event planning work that she had put into the big occasion. She had assigned herself three contestants to chaperone through the rehearsal and went around the room to catch up with them and help them do their best. The next three hours were hectic, complete with on-stage meltdowns, tears, laughter and one or two excellent performances that caused the room to fall silent. She signed out at Jill’s desk just after twelve twenty and caught the bus five minutes later back to Foley Road, bought some sliced ham from the shop then walked the final few hundred yards to her lodging.
“Hol, afternoon!” said Addie from the kitchen. She was seated at the little table, eating lunch. “Hey, I would have made some for you if I’d known you’d be back,” she said. There was a salad in front of her with what looked like cheese, pickle and maybe beef.
“Don’t worry, I picked up something just now. Hey, and thanks so much for the money, that was way more than I had spent.”
“No problem. My Mum and Dad seemed to have got a pay rise so I did too.” Holly buttered some of her loaf and arranged the ham, lettuce, tomato and pickles into a thick sandwich, then sat at the table and ate, pleased with the mix of tastes from the sandwich. “So. Budget. What news?” asked Addie.
“Oh yeah, I did the budget, came out to a lot more than I had figured once I included everything that we really needed to buy. Just for six months.”
“And?”
“Seventeen grand or thereabouts”
“Jeeze, that’s a big no-no, right?”
“Oh yeah. Not even worth thinking about,” said Holly over her shoulder as she made coffee.
“Time to move on?” asked Addie as Holly sat back down.
“I think so, just not now, not before his final exam,” she replied, stirring her coffee. She thought back to the previous night and their lightning session.
“So, all the passion has evaporated,” said Addie, looking at her dismay. She reached out and touched her hand. Holly shrugged, and then shook her head very slowly.
“What, no passion at all?” Holly didn’t answer but her silence spoke with great clarity of her dejection, confusion and irritation of their love life. “Hey, it’s not always fireworks and shaking ground for me either. Half the time I fake it to be nice to the guy.”
Holly sipped her coffee, swallowing loudly. Adie touched her hand again. “Slap in the face time?” Holly smiled, suddenly delighted that the girl was here, that they had a special avenue to speak about difficult subjects that was amusing and safe. She nodded, tilting her head to the side in anticipation. “How often are the fireworks?”
Holly looked up, sad, resigned to the fact that she was most likely useless in bed. She simply shook her head, waited for a response then looked down at her sandwich.
“Hol, are you saying never? Like zero?”
Holly shook her head again. “Not once. No fireworks, not even a kiddy sparkler.”
Addie sat back in her chair and breathed out, regarding Holly and the news that she clearly hadn’t expected. “Addie, I’m not sure I want to discuss it, it’s private, between Rob and me,” she said, although there was no finality in her tone.
“I don’t want to pry, just help you think.”
“I know”
“Look, some logic questions will help. One, you never orgasm when you have sex with him, right?” Holly nodded, her eyes wide partially from the question but more from her confirmation of Addie’s suspicion. “OK, two, when you do it yourself does that work?”
“Addie!”
“Hol, everyone does it, including me. I’d do it every day if I had the time!”
Holly nodded. “Yeah, that works perfectly.”
“OK, double slap question?” asked Addie, and Holly nodded knowing that their discussion really was confidential, she trusted Addie totally. “When he goes into you, are you open, wet, you know, prepared and ready?”
She shook her head, deciding that the line of questioning had gone far enough. “Never. It all lasts about thirty seconds,” she replied, hoping that those comments would end the conversation. She definitely didn’t want to have a conversation about oral sex or discuss Rob’s lack of hygiene which would really be reflection on her as well as him.
“So, in two years, right, two years?” Holly nodded. “In two years you haven’t come once with him?’ Addie sat forward and looked at her directly, taking her hand. “Hol, time for a change, really.” Holly stood, throwing the crusts of her sandwich into the rubbish bin. She placed her hand on Addie’s shoulder and grabbed her coffee. “Hol, you deserve more than this. You need someone who will treat you like a woman, who knows his way around.”
Holly nodded at the kitchen door. “Next week,” she said, then strode back to Addie and kissed her head. Upstairs she slumped onto her bed and rewound the conversation, noting mainly that Addie orgasmed half the time when she had sex. It wasn’t like the girl had different men every night. She was choo
sy, careful in whom she dated and eventually brought home. Never have sex on the first date. Never. That was her rule. Holly stared out of the window as clouds scudded across her view and her thoughts turned to Rob, then Mike. She wondered how it must feel to be able to lie there with a man inside her and be brought to orgasm, all without doing anything herself, like using a form of lovable, warm and animated sex toy. She parted her legs and brought her feet together, then rubbed her hand gently over the legs of her jeans and up over her pussy. Her hands slid up her body and gripped the headboard as though she was tied to it. She could never envisage Rob as a sex toy although he was warm and lovable on occasions though those too were drifting away from her now. Mike on the other hand could be crafted into a sex toy with endless stamina just with a few new ideas and tweaks to her little playbook.
She fell asleep for about an hour, then woke around two and got ready for her evening shift at the restaurant where she had been a waitress for over a year. She absolutely depended on the money from her Friday evening and Saturday all-day shifts which helped her buy food for the week and put away money for the car. This week would be result in a slightly lower income due to the orphanage music night on Saturday but in Holly’s mind it was a small sacrifice. The uniform - a dress code really - demanded black stockings and shoes, a short black skirt and bleached white blouse. She took great pride in ironing her skirt and blouse in the kitchen before she set off and that was the one occasion when she would be in her underwear in the house, feeling a kinship with Addie if she happened to appear at that time.
Chapter 5
The weekend lunch shifts netted her about two hundred dollars of which she deposited a hundred and eighty in her savings account, which now stood at six thousand four hundred dollars. She calculated that was enough for a down-payment on a car and would leave her a manageable monthly payment over three years until it was fully paid off. Saturday evening had been devoted to the music content at the Orphanage which had been won by someone singing “I will Survive” but somewhat differently from Gloria Gaynor’s rendition. However, it was passionate and heartfelt, rhythmic and the young girl had many of the moves down pat and so after she was crowned the winner she was asked to sing it again which she did, while the majority of the audience and other contestants danced and sang along.
Rob had texted her and she had replied over Sunday afternoon but the content had really been about whether they were still talking to each other and no mention was made about the subject of travel. She wished him the very best of luck for his exam on Monday and agreed to catch up with him on Tuesday sometime.
She spent the most of Monday polishing her resume and listing companies that she felt might be good targets for her newly minted skills and qualifications. She added her voluntary work at the orphanage and other good causes that she had supported while at university, along with the most relevant societies that she had joined. Two hours that afternoon were spent laboring through a small number of online application forms with little prospect of even hearing back from any of the companies.
At about five o’clock Holly began to feel like she had been voted ‘Miss Popular’ of Witney University. Her cellphone rang, indicting it was Stephany, a school friend who had decided to go straight out to work rather than pursue a university degree. After exchanging greetings Holly explained what she expected to be doing.
“Yep, so I’ve just started filling in application forms. Got a spreadsheet too of potential firms and I was just ranking them for location, desirability, that sort of thing” she said, delighted to hear from her old school friend.
“Cool. You’ll do fine Hol. I’ve just started a new job as junior manager for IT Operations here. Super busy and great experience. What sort of thing are you looking for?” asked Stephany.
“Oh wow, congrats! So, I want to do marketing and corporate promotion, but with people involved, not just products and ads. Something that will involve travel and getting to see the world.”
“Thought you and Rob were going to do that?” said Stephany, the noise of a regular metallic clacking in the background.
“You on the train?” asked Holly, recalling that she took the train from home to work.
“Yeah, going home early today, we have a release coming up this weekend and I need to get extra sleep”
“Huh. No, I don’t think the trip is going to work, it’s too expensive and I have zero money for it” said Holly, staring out at the gathering clouds.
“Yeah, can’t see how you would do it for less than twenty grand.”
“Yup, so I’m focused now on staying in this place and getting a job, but I’d move if I had to for work,” said Holly, thinking that she seemed to have made a huge decision unconsciously.
“Hey, we use event people for trade shows and that sort of thing. We don’t have expertise in-house. Want me to find out who we use?”
“Yeah, would you? That would be great!” said Holly, knowing that a personal introduction would speak volumes compared to an online application.
“Course. The guy who manages it over here is called Don. I’ll give him your email and see if he can reach out to you. How are your parents?”
“They’re fine thanks, still walking through the hills and valleys, fit as always. Yours?”
“Yeah, they’re fine. Hey, you going to the reunion next month?” asked Stephany.
“I got the email but I can’t afford it. Maybe next year.”
“I went to the last one, not many from our year were there. Saw Sandra and Eric, glued to each other as always. Shelly was there but threw up in the car park.”
“That girl has a problem!”
“Tell me! Not much else to report though. I left early as it was kind of dull without the old crew there.”
“Yeah, they need to ship us all in as the cabaret!”
“Yup. Look, here’s my stop. Stay in touch Hol, hope all goes well!”
“Will do and thanks for the intros! Thanks so much for calling.”
“Bye!”
Holly smiled. There was a girl, she thought, who had entered the workforce straight from school with a level of confidence in her abilities which had taken Holly four years to develop. She knew what she wanted and chased employers without resting until they gave her what she demanded. She was driven, smart and it made Holly wonder what extra value she had obtained from her four years of study. Perhaps it came down to just personal development, and if that was the case, her judgment about Rob would give her a failing grade. As if on cue, her phone vibrated and a text from Rob appeared: exam went fine. Wanna catch up tonight? She let it sit for a few minutes even though she knew how she would answer. Then, leaving her desk she grabbed a clean pair of panties, stripped, pulled on her dressing gown and went to the bathroom. As the shower heated up she dropped the gown to the floor and twirled in front of the full length mirror which Addie had installed with a hammer and nails.
She stood on tiptoe and noted the shape of her calves, the way they tapered to her knees and then the lithe shape of her thighs. Her buttocks were taut with the same sort of shape that she recalled from High School, bubbly and attractive. Her breasts were firm and as she squeezed them together she wondered just what men would think of them. They weren’t big at all but then they would never be down to her knees when she got to sixty. She turned with her back to the mirror and spread her legs, trying to imagine what Rob would see if he had ever flipped her round. The mirror was steaming up as she turned again and with one foot on the bath, parted her pussy lips. Everything seemed in order and her face was still pretty, young, her skin unblemished and her hair lustrous, wavy and full of vitality, just like it promised on the shampoo bottle.
Back in her room she sat with her feet on the desk, naked, clean and warm, thinking about her response to him. She knew they had to meet but wanted it to be out in the open, not in her room. She also wanted to part friends so that their two years had some meaning to both of them. He would need to collect his stuff from her room but she woul
d say there was no hurry so that he knew she wasn’t breaking up with him for somebody else. She moved her feet so they were either side of her keyboard, pleased with the sensation of exposure and wondering why she had never done it before. Her bottom drawer contained a small travel-sized container of baby oil, and just a few drips of that would be enough to help her fingers slip and slide all over her clit. She had one dirty video on her laptop, something that Rob had given her many months ago in a brief period of total openness. It showed a couple having sex in a house that had no furniture except for a large bed and where the woman’s screams echoed around the place, drowning out his grunts of passion. All she seemed to say all the time was either ‘yes’ or ‘oh god’ but after the hundredth time it became annoying and a major distraction. She had seen it dozens of times and the impact decreased each time she viewed it so she simply cupped her pussy and felt the warmth from her skin as she leaned back and closed her eyes. Anyway, she thought, if she had an orgasm like the one the previous week courtesy of Mike, the bartender who was the star of her fantasy land then she would probably slide off the chair and break her neck. She texted: gotta go to foundation handover tonight. How about afternoon tomorrow?
As she pressed the return key a call came in from an unknown number. She clicked the green key and waited for the stupid advertisement for credit card loans.
Holly gets a ride (Holly Craig Series) Page 3
