The Intern and Other Stories

by Alexe Andrewes

  The Biggest Banana in Florida

  By Leigh Clark

  Florida is not all it’s cracked up to be - not if you’re trying to put a relationship back together. Liam had been seduced by the adverts on TV into thinking the Florida Keys were the answer to our problems: more seduced than he was by me, these days. He’d found a cut-price holiday and booked us on it, saying that while there was a recession, we should take advantage of this kind of bargain because who knew when one of us might lose our job and then holidays would be a thing of the past. It wasn’t the kind of sales technique that was guaranteed to win me over to the idea, even if we’d been getting on well. But we weren’t.

  We’d hit a rut, after four years together, and the fact that we both had demanding jobs didn’t help. Two weeks away, in an almost tropical climate, with all the attractions of The Sunshine State ... it should have revved up our sex lives no end. No chance. First Liam got jet lag and walked around like a zombie all day and then couldn’t sleep at night and sat up, zapping from channel to channel on the TV. The hotel he’d booked us into was a dump too. And just when he got into synch with the USA, I developed an allergy to mosquito bites, and swelled up like I was wearing a fat suit. Now I was drowsy all day with antihistamines and steroids, and spend the nights scratching my bitten ankles. We were so not enjoying ourselves. The scenery was not as good as it appeared on the adverts and most of the people around us seemed to be auditioning to appear in Super-Size Me, where were all the slim, sexy, sun-tanned buff boys and bimbos that showed up in the American soap operas? They certainly weren’t in the bit of the Sunshine State we found ourselves in.

  Then Liam sprang his surprise - our first weekend in Florida was to be spent on a paddle steamer - more heat, more swamp, more bloody mosquitoes! It was the worst idea he’d ever had and I let him know it. But he’d paid the money, so off we went.

  Okay, the boat, or ship, I’ve never known how you decide which, was pretty impressive. It was like a wedding cake with a hamster wheel stuck on the side but scaled to the super-size people we’d been passing in the malls and streets. It was huge. And white. And weirdly sexy. Compared to the boat, we were small and white and weirdly unsexy, and as we trudged our way on board, with our weekend holdalls and our antihistamine smeared ankles, I almost feared some top-hatted impresario would stop us at the top of the stairs and say, “Dear people, you are not fit to mingle with the good folk who will be enjoying themselves this weekend. I regret to say you are too ugly.” No such thing happened, but I watched Liam walking ahead of me, his skinny backside swaying, his tartan shorts contrasting horribly with his pale legs, I started to feel as if our relationship was doomed. I was doomed. I’d been declared ugly and without some fairy Godmother waving a wand, all the fun in my life was over.

  I spent the weekend avoiding Liam and trying to manage some kind of transformation scene for myself, with the limited supplies I had on hand. I sunbathed all day, worked on my hair before dinner, and spent the Friday and Saturday evening walking the promenade decks, trying to work off the pounds I was putting on with comfort eating. I wished there was a spa on board, or even a plastic surgeon. I could have used a nip and tuck. So while Liam hung in the casino, losing money, I lay in our cabin and did sit-ups. Many, many, many sit-ups.

  The highlight of the Sunday evening was the Starlite Banana - a giant inflatable, carrying shrieking passengers, towed behind the steamer as the sun set. It sounded like hell on earth and I point-blank refused to go. “You can fuck off, Liam, and take your banana with you,” is what I actually said, and he gave me a disgusted glance, pulled on his Bermuda shorts and left.

  An hour later he was back, slapping his thigh and woo-hooing like a cowboy. “It was great, Kat, just great! Such a buzz!”

  He knelt beside me, putting his hands high on my thighs. I was trying to paint my nails, so I couldn’t push him off, which was my first, irritated reaction. Instead I scowled at him and then shivered as his thumbs dug into the soft flesh close to my hips, a place I’ve always been very sensitive.

  “Kat,” he looked into my eyes. “I know it hasn’t gone well, so far, but trust me, you’re going to enjoy this.”

  Something in the way he said it made me shiver again. There had been a time when Liam had known me better than any other man: he’d read me like a book - a dirty book whose pages he couldn’t wait to turn. I arched my back, pushing my boobs into his face, and he grinned. The sight of his smile made me wet, in the split-second, knee-trembling way it always used to, back when things had been good. For a moment I thought he was going to lean forward and press his mouth against my cleavage and I prepared to roll back, taking him with me, wrapping my legs round him, but instead he blinked as if shaking off a stray thought and said, “Come on.”

  “Come on where?” I snapped, flapping my still-wet French manicure in the air.

  “Ride the banana!” he yelled and grabbed my hand. The manicure was ruined.

  “Liam, you arsehole! What about dinner? And I wanted to spend this evening doing some stretches.”

  “Kat, come on! Who cares about dinner? We can get fries and Cajun sauce in the casino until midnight and you can do your nails later - damn it, I’ll even help you. I’ll hold your ankles while you do sit-ups, I’ll carry your water-bottle while you do your deck laps, whatever you want. But I want to do something really good fun with you, right now. The banana guy is waiting to give us an extra ride, just you and me - what do you say?”

  So I had a choice - I could sulk over my nails or take Liam’s word for it and ride the banana. For a second I hesitated, the strong smell of varnish hanging around us like a curse, then I grabbed his hand and let him lead me to the deck.

  The banana man was waiting, with his giant, bright yellow banana floating just behind the steamer. He was an elderly black man with a seamed face and he was wearing a checked cap and a string vest with a pair of suit trousers. His whole appearance was pretty incongruous and I stared at him for a moment before Liam helped me climb down and sit astride the monster banana. It felt weird - solid yet flexible. I grabbed the handle in front of me, smearing it with the last of the French manicure polish, and felt Liam settling himself behind me, but the banana guy had begun to pay out the line and I was too nervous to look round at Liam. The banana bounced over every wave, and rolled slightly from side to side - not enough to frighten me, but I needed to concentrate to keep my balance.

  Once I was sure my knees would grip the banana tightly enough to stop me sliding off, I looked at the view. Moss-covered trees lined the banks and the evening sky was full of sunset clouds. Night-birds called and the ripples on the river were silver. It was very romantic.

  I turned to say so, but the movement made the banana rock, and I shrieked. Liam’s hands came round my waist to steady me, and then moved higher until he was cupping my breasts. Immediately my nipples began to ache. I felt his hot breath on my ear.

  “Turn round,” he said.

  I giggled.

  “I mean it, Kat. You told me that when you were in Pony club you could do that thing - what was it called?”

  “Around the world,” I said. “It’s where you take your feet out of the stirrups and swivel so you’re facing over the pony’s back and then round again so you end up where you started.”

  “You’re going to end up with a surprise,” Liam said and I began to turn round.

  I ended up in his lap, and he’d pulled down the waistband of his shorts so his cock was showing. I looked up at the boat, but I couldn’t see the banana guy against the darkness, so I didn’t think he could see us. I hitched up and pulled my own shorts off, tucking them under the handle behind me to keep them safe. Then I lowered myself onto Liam’s shaft, hearing him groan with pleasure. I was wet and I slipped down faster than I’d planned, feeling him big inside me. We both gasped as I came to rest - it felt to me like the head of his cock had ended up somewher
e around the bottom of my lungs!

  After a couple of seconds, as we got used to the rocking, rippling motion, Liam started to thrust with his hips, reaching around me to grab the handle, while I put my hands on his shoulders and began to move, matching his thrusts. The banana bucked and rolled in the water, making it impossible to predict what would happen next - would he fill me to the hilt or almost slide out?

  It was both sexy and funny, like when you’re first getting into sex and you’re doing some dirty thing and you remember that you’ve seen it on a film or somebody told you about it in a whisper and now you’re making it real and you get a big foolish grin on your face. I remembered when Liam and I first got together, we’d been so desperate for each other than we hadn’t even managed to get home to his flat one night, even though his flatmate was away and a double bed and privacy awaited us. Instead we’d found ourselves under some railway arches that were on the route home from the pub, and we’d decided that one dark corner was ideal for a knee-trembler. I’d been wearing a dress, fortunately, because it just would have been impossible in trousers, but there was a moment when I found myself with my leg hooked up around Liam’s back, his hands fumbling with a condom, because I wasn’t on the pill then, and his trousers fell to his ankles, landing in the puddles around us. We’d started to laugh and then Liam had slipped his cock inside me, and we were laughing and fucking at once and it had been a deliriously funny, sexy, silly few seconds until, without warning, I came. It had happened so fast even Liam was taken by surprise. We’d had such good times, once. And amazingly, we seemed to be having them again.

  Right now, Liam was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, starting to tense up the way he does when he’s going to come. I had one leg propped up on the banana, the other trailing in the water, and I couldn’t tell which slapping sounds were the water and which were our bodies moving together.

  “Kat,” he moaned, telling me he was close, and I slid my hand off his shoulder and down so that a finger rested each side of my clit. Immediately I was close too, and as the banana slid around under us, I could feel myself starting to come.

  Then I looked ahead. The damn steamer was lighting up! The prow was glowing white, the twin paddles in the middle of the ship were starting to sparkle with pink lights, fairy lights were twinkling into life along railings and soon the rear deck would light up too. I could even see the old banana man, shading his eyes in the lights that had just illuminated the casino deck, and he was peering in our direction.

  “Bastard!” I said. He’d known this was going to happen, we’d be caught fucking like rabbits in a headlight’s glare. Liam moaned. His eyes were closed and he was oblivious to what was happening behind him. There was only one thing for it. I used all my willpower and lifted myself off him.

  “Kat?” But I was already scooting backwards, spinning round, grabbing my clothes ... only to see my undies fly out of my shorts and land in the river - a little patch of white that disappeared into the distance as I swore and wriggled into my shorts.

  Liam was looking at the banana man as he pulled his shorts up. “Oh you bastard,” he said slowly. “I am going to punch your lights out.”

  I grinned. “I’ve got a better idea,” I said as the banana man began to reel us in. “You know revenge is a dish best eaten cold?”

  Liam nodded.

  “Well a banana surprise is a dish best eaten hot, right?” I put my finger in my mouth and sucked. “Then you can come back and punch him!”

  As we were hauled back to the low deck, we were giggling and hanging onto each other like teenagers. I could feel the seam of my shorts cutting into my soft wet flesh and I wriggled a little, trying to move it to a place where it could give me more pleasure. Liam noticed and leaned over, sliding his hand down the back of my shorts to cup my bare buttock and squeeze hard, as he pushed me off the banana and onto the boat. Then he clambered up behind me, making ‘later’ gestures to the banana man who just grinned. He must have seen it a hundred times before. How naïve of us to think we were the first couple who’d spotted the sexual potential of the banana - probably he was lucky enough to enjoy a free sex show most weekends of the year. Dirty old man! I looked back over my shoulder at him and wondered if he was actually my fairy Godmother after all. Because miracles come in surprising shapes and sizes.

  As soon as we were in the corridor that led to our cabin, Liam grabbed me and we started kissing as we stumbled to the door. I took the card key out of his shirt pocket, tweaking his nipple as I did, and turned to shove the card in the door slot. Liam pushed up against me, so I could feel his hard-on against my arse. For a few seconds we stood like that, with me struggling to get the card in place while I shimmied my backside against him and he rubbed himself against my shorts.

  Finally I got the card in place and turned the handle. The door opened and we were catapulted into the room. I hit the bunk and slid down it, while Liam landed on his knees. He grabbed my ankle and pulled me down with him, laughing like a sex fiend, and I kicked the door shut as I turned over, pulled off my shorts, and wrapped my legs around his waist. He was deep into me in one thrust and I was wet enough to want him deeper, so I half sat up and grabbed the edge of the bunk, using it as leverage to push against him. He pushed back, straightening his arms so he was high above me, looking down at my breasts, I took one hand off the bunk and pulled up my T-shirt, sliding my palm across my hard nipples to make him groan. Liam had always liked it when I played with my own body, he seemed almost to like me touching myself as much as he liked me touching him - it had been one of the reasons that I feel for him in the first place, I suddenly remembered - the way that he got off on my pleasure, and wanted me to come again and again, putting off his own orgasm so that I could get in as many as I wanted.

  But that was then, and this was now. Between the excitement and the fact that we hadn’t had good sex for weeks, maybe even months, I knew he couldn’t hold out long like this, so I let go of my tits and slid my fingers down to my clit again. As soon as I felt I was starting to come I heard Liam’s breathing change and knew I was only going to beat him to it by a split second. I did, trying not to shout out loud and then deciding to hell with it, we weren’t going to see any of these people in our lives again, if I wanted to shout I would damn well shout!

  We lay on the floor, panting and giggling. Finally we calmed down.

  “I thought you wanted me to eat the biggest banana in Florida?” I said, setting Liam off laughing again.

  “Later,” he said, and I grinned. My manicure was destroyed, I’d lost my underwear, we’d missed dinner, nearly shown a voyeur the way we both came, and I had carpet burns up my back but I didn’t give a fuck.

  “Are we going to find out if two people can fit into one of these bunks then?” I asked.

  Liam looked dubious. “I dunno Kat, they’re really small. I don’t reckon we’d get much sleep.”

  “Who said anything about sleep?” I dug my nails into his backside until he groaned and bent his mouth to my breast. I grinned - we were back in business, thanks to the biggest banana in Florida!

  -end-

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