The Lady and Tay

by Dawn Burton

  “And you must always tell me if there’s anything you want or need to know from me. I will always answer. I’m an open book. No secrets here that I won’t tell you. But you probably should know. I’ve been through a long black period in my 20s and most of my 30s. I abused every substance going, I slept around, I cheated on partners, had a very brief destructive marriage, I didn’t make the time to see my family, I wasn’t nice to be around a lot of the time, and everyone just excused my behaviour over and over because I kept the money rolling in.

  “I literally broke, and it’s taken a while to reassemble the pieces. I’ve come out of the other side now, just in time to get back on the road with the guys, but I hardly drink compared to before, I don’t do drugs, and I haven’t had sex in a long time. A very long time. So long in fact, I might have forgotten what to do.” He grinned at her, then looked serious again. “So please forgive me if I mess any of this up. I’m trying to be a good guy now, and my intentions will always be good, but I’m scared I’m going to mess up. I just wanna be the man you need me to be.”

  “No, that’ll never work, trying to be what you think someone else wants. Be the man you need to be, and I’ll tag along if I like the look of him. Which I do so far.” She snuggled into his side. “But…snap on the sex front. I was a wild child and I slept with a lot of boys in London, mainly when I was drunk and high on whatever was on offer. I hit 21 and realised I hated myself. My parents died and I took some time off, travelled around, came back and realised I couldn’t stay in London. Moved to Coventry, got strangely attached, and settled here. But anyway, I haven’t had sex for…erm…four years now. So, let’s take each other’s born-again virginity, be as kind as we can to each other, and see where we end up.”

  Taylor smiled. “Perfect. You’re perfect. This night’s been perfect. But there’s no rush, we can remain virgins a while longer if tonight’s too soon.”

  “Fuck no, not from me! You’ve reminded me of what I’m missing out on. There’s only so much a vibrator and fingers can achieve. You said it earlier, I’ve been waiting for you, and my floodgates are at bursting point.”

  “Let me burst your dam then,” he whispered suggestively in her ear, laughing at his own cheesiness, “but I’m sorry to hear about your parents.” He’d picked up on the fact that there was an issue there, but surely losing parents was never easy.

  “I’m not. The world’s a better place without them,” she said shortly. She glanced up at him and rubbed her face. “Sorry, long story for another day.”

  “Ok.” He pulled her in again and bent for a kiss…just as the taxi pulled up and beeped its horn. “Shit. One day soon I'm gonna get to properly kiss you with no interruptions!”

  “Soon.” She smiled and stroked his cheek, gently pressing her lips to his, as he held the door open for her to get in.

  As the taxi pulled away, he wrapped his arms around his body and bounced on his toes, waiting until he could no longer see it, sending her a message to say he missed her and then walking in to rejoin his friends, a huge smile cracking open his face.

  Chapter Two

  The time really dragged as Taylor sat waiting for his friends to drink up, get to the restaurant, eat their meal, and get going to Annie’s. He’d already decided as soon as she said she was back home, he’d ask if he come to her, but her last message five minutes ago as they arrived at the restaurant, said she was about to be called in at the station.

  He grilled Davy about her, how they met, how they worked together and what he knew about her. Davy confirmed they’d known each other for about a year now, and she’d suddenly turned up in the city, asking how she could support the local bands he promoted. She was already working on her plans for the youth flats, having approached the council to work alongside them the year before, getting the derelict buildings bulldozed and Watch House built.

  She’d set up a bursary scheme so anyone who needed money to do something that would benefit their community could apply for one, and Davy had helped her interview several rounds of applicants now. She’d set up some befriending system for old people, buying a couple of minibuses and establishing a website where people could book a ride to and from supermarkets or social clubs. And she offered free music lessons at her house on Saturday mornings to kids in the city who couldn’t afford them privately.

  Taylor’s head was spinning at all she’d arranged, particularly in the space of a year or two. Why? Why Coventry, and why do all this? Why wasn’t she off living an Insta life, being an ‘influencer’ or whatever the fuck that was, or appearing on Made In Chelsea or something? He couldn’t wait to find out more about what made her tick. He’d seen the confident, sexy, emotional, vulnerable sides of her, and he wanted more. He wanted it all.

  Davy suggested he look her up online, “There’s loads on there about her; apparently she was a right wild child, going to clubs, drink, drugs, boys, the lot. Then there’s some articles about her parents dying and she just dropped out of the scene. Then she suddenly turns up here.”

  He could take the easy route and google her, but he knew how stories could be spun by the media, and he didn’t want those stories to affect how he saw her. He wanted to hear her side of it, so he shook his head and tried to join in with his friends, checking his phone every few minutes for an update.

  As they finished their starters, his phone pinged and his heart leapt as he picked it up to check. She was home! He messaged asking if he could come over, and she replied with her address but asking him to give her half an hour to get her lad, Adam, sorted with a cup of tea and a chat first. He cursed his impatience and instantly felt embarrassed that he’d asked. She had other responsibilities and couldn’t just drop everything for him. She’d just picked this Adam up from the police station for fuck’s sake, of course she had to spend time with him to discuss what had happened. He replied, apologising, telling her to just message him when she was free, that he didn’t mean to intrude when she had things to do.

  She didn’t reply and his anxiety grew. Had he pissed her off? Did he need to tread more carefully when ‘real life’ and her kids needed her? Should he just back off? He chewed at his thumb nail, agitating the skin around the edge.

  His lead guitarist, Con, nudged him, “What’s wrong?” Connor was the sensible one with the good advice, and his no-nonsense Northern Irish brogue had talked him down many a time.

  “I think I might have pushed Annie too much and now she’s not replied to me.”

  “When you say ‘pushed’?”

  “Well, I asked if I could come around now instead of when we all go.”

  “And she said?”

  “Yes, but to give her half an hour. I apologised for pushing and not thinking, and said for her to just let me know when she’s done. And now nothing back.”

  “It’s fine, dude, you’re overthinking.”

  He sat cradling his phone, his knee jumping wildly, suddenly lyrics pouring through him too fast to catch. This always happened when he was about to get a song idea. He just had to try and breathe through it and then he’d catch a thread of words and it would turn into something. He closed his head, breathed in, breathed out, in, out, in, out…got it! He scrambled upright, Con shoving pen and paper towards him with a smile, recognising his signs of creativity.

  “Good to see she’s inspiring you already, whether it’s a love song or a heartfelt lament for lost love!”

  He wrote and wrote and wrote, then became aware of Con saying something to him. “Wha?” Shit, his phone. Shit, it was Annie. He dived on it, but he was too late and it went to voicemail. “No!”

  He called her but just got her voicemail in return. He waited an eternity of seconds before a message pinged in to say he had a voicemail and he called it up, listening to her soft tones telling him that Adam had kicked off when they got back but was now happily playing Xbox so to come round when he was ready, and to call her when he got to the gates.

  He pushed the lyrics into his coat pocket, knowing he’d captured
enough to be able to pick the melody up when he returned to them, and shouted bye to everyone around the table. He went to the bar and paid for his food, plus added an extra £200 to be taken off the table’s bill, calling up her address on Maps and heading straight down the central precinct of the city centre.

  He messaged her to say he was on his way, and in minutes he emerged at the bottom of the Lower Precinct and crossed the road to head up into Spon Street.

  He crossed to the righthand side of the road, walking past the higgledy-piggledy row of medieval timbered buildings, knowing her street, Watch Close, was just up here somewhere. He heard a shout of ‘Hey, is that-?” behind him, but he pulled his hood up, kept his head down and strode on.

  He turned into Watch Close; wow, this had changed. He was pretty sure they’d done a photo shoot in the Laser Quest that used to be here; the pain hitting him when he thought of that, but the entrance road was all shut off with security gates now. He went to call her, but the camera swung towards him, the intercom crackled into life, “Push!”, and the pedestrian gate buzzed, so he entered.

  Annie stood on the doorway in the middle of a huge new timber and rendered complex, sympathetic to its surroundings, with darkened windows that gave away no clues about the insides; his own insides doing full 360-degree flips at seeing her.

  He headed up the small path surrounded by a drive and large garage to his left and an oblong of impossibly green grass for this time of year, dipping his hand down to confirm that it was artificial, and walked up to her with a smile.

  “Yes," she grinned, "it’s fake because it also serves as our football pitch or frisbee pitch or wrestling ring or whatever else is needed for letting off steam!”

  “Everyone needs a bit of fakery to make life easier from time to time. Hey, I missed you. Sorry if you needed a bit of space after bringing Adam back, I should have realised you’d need a bit of time to talk to him about it all, instead of hassling you to come around.”

  She shook her head and frowned as if unsure what he was talking about. Phew, maybe Con was right and he’d been over-thinking. “You weren’t hassling. It was fine. He had a meltdown when we got back while we were trying to unpick what had triggered him, so we’ve just told him he’s safe, he’s cared for, and we’ll talk about it tomorrow. One of my support workers, Will, is sitting with him playing FIFA now so he’s in good hands.”

  Taylor reached for her hand and kissed her knuckles, stepping in front of her. “Can I get my kiss now?”

  Right on cue, a shout came from inside, “Annie?”

  She laughed quietly, touching her forehead against his. “One moment.” She turned and went in through the door, lacing her fingers through his and pulling him in with her. They entered a large square lobby with settees and low tables throughout, in various sizes of configurations. Around 8 teenagers sat scattered around the lobby, staring curiously at him and he raised a hand in hello.

  There was a stage on the left with a small dancefloor, a dj box beyond that, and directly opposite him, a wall of glass with doors to a partly-covered courtyard, with patio heaters around tables and a string of coloured lights swaying slightly overhead.

  To the right, in a large alcove was the kitchen. A massive oak table with benches and seats, and a bank of ovens, hobs and fridges along the side of the alcove that Taylor could see, and then completing the circle, to his immediate right, an open door to a storeroom, a cloakroom and toilets by the looks of it.

  Annie answered the query from a girl who cast quick looks at Taylor before scurrying off through a door in the far-left corner behind the dj box, and then she returned to him. “Quick tour.”

  She pulled him past a bar stocked with cans and bottles in fridges to his immediate left and opened a door to a huge empty space, with a small kitchenette to the right and stairs to the left. “Not sure what I’m doing with this area yet. There’s 10 en-suite rooms up above, and it was supposed to be a separate, rentable conference space for people to run courses, but I’ve kind of run out of steam to concentrate on that right now. Davy’s suggested it could be a good studio space, but I wouldn’t have the first clue about that, so, yeah, if you have any thoughts, let me know!” They headed back to the lobby and walked along the left side, past the stage and the musical store room behind the stage, past the dj box and then to the door in the far corner.

  Annie swiped her card and opened the door, “One set of 10 flats for my young adults”. Inside was another lounge space, with a lad and a guy in his 20s, playing a football video game. Adam and Will, Taylor assumed, as he held up his hand in greeting. Windows on the left looked out to fences and a row of trees masking Coventry's central ring road beyond that. A staircase led up to where the flats presumably were.

  They stepped back into the main lobby, walking past the large windows overlooking the courtyard, which was flanked on two sides by the wings of flats, and headed towards the right-hand side. Annie pointed towards another door in the corner, “The other set of 10 flats, same set up as the other side.”

  They walked into the kitchen, heading for a door at the back and Annie keying in a code, pushing the door open and pulling Taylor through. “And finally, my wing.”

  Taylor took it all in as Annie pressed something on her phone to turn a number of lamps on; the open living, dining and kitchen space ahead of him.

  On the left was a huge fireplace, settees and reading lamps, with floor to ceiling book shelves, leading onto an open plan kitchen with white cupboards and granite worktops. Dark windows and more glass doors at the far end and top right of the space were waiting to flood the room with daylight, while a dining table sat in the right-hand corner of the room. A wide staircase to the upstairs took up most of the immediate right-hand space.

  Annie pushed the door shut and leant against it, looking nervously at Taylor. “What do you think?”

  “It’s amazing; all of it. And it feels like somewhere I’m supposed to be, with you.” He stepped in front of Annie, running his fingers up her exposed arm, watching the skin prickle and the goosebumps form. She shivered under his touch. “Are you cold?”

  “No.”

  They stared at each other and then Taylor dipped his head, finally getting to kiss her in the way he’d wanted to from the start. He ran his thumb over her plump lips, pulling the soft skin down to open her up. He licked across the seam of her mouth, pushing his lips against hers as she pushed her body into him and moaned.

  They mashed lips and swirled tongues, exploring each other urgently as their hands roamed their bodies. Annie pulled at Taylor’s t-shirt impatiently, pushing it up his chest and he grabbed it, pulling it up and off. She inhaled softly as she took in his toned stomach. He wasn’t a gym bunny, so he didn’t have the huge bulging pec and bicep muscles, but he was toned and lithe, and as she ran her hands over his torso, she could feel the solidness under his warm skin. She raised her mouth to his again, needing to come up on her tiptoes to make the connection with him.

  He ran his hand against her breast, feeling the fullness contained in her bra and he groaned into her mouth. She grinned and lifted the hem of her dress with crossed arms, raising them up and over her head to remove her dress, revealing her black lace balcony bra and knicker set. Taylor immediately sank his head into the soft valley created by her breasts and nuzzled the space, littering her with gentle kisses. “God, I love your boobs,” he murmured. “I have to say, I’m very definitely a breast man, and these are fucking spectacular.” He squeezed her as he spoke, rubbing his thumbs over her attentive nipples straining against the material containing them.

  “You’d better release them then, before you explode,” she replied smiling, reaching behind to undo her bra clasp.

  He slowly pulled the straps off her shoulders, then bit the front wired part. Pulling his head back to watch her tits gently wobble and then bounce back into their position, he spat the bra to the side and groaned again, lifting a breast up with his nose and then watching it jiggle back, repeating on the ot
her side. “Man, these are amazing. I can’t wait to watch them as you ride on me! But first, before all that, I absolutely need to say hello to this beautiful cunt you told me about.”

  “Ah yes, it’s been starved of attention recently, so it’s really rather hungry!” Annie pulled Taylor down to the floor, tugging at the button on his jeans and pulling them down over his hips, lifting her own hips as he hooked his thumbs under the sides of her lacy boy-short knickers and pulled them down and off her. He could smell her arousal and his mouth watered. “Should we, erm, move upstairs?” he suggested.

  “Can’t. Wait,” she panted, shoving his head down between her legs and wrapping her ankles behind him.

  “Oh, ok!” Taylor happily set to work, using his tongue to swirl gently over her clit as his hands explored her waist, running over the slight ridge of each rib, sweeping over the curve of her hips, her arse, and then down to her thighs. He swiped his tongue along her slit, then returned to push it up inside her, putting his thumb on her clit and moving round and round in circles. She gasped and arched her hips, pushing down onto his tongue, one hand grabbing at his hair and another clawing at his shoulder blades, causing him to hiss.

  “Please,” she begged. “Please Taylor, I need this so badly. Tay-”

  He increased his pressure on her clit with his thumb and sat up slightly to insert one finger, then two, inside her. He crooked his fingers and pumped her g-spot as he increased the pressure on her clit, before reaching to take a nipple in his mouth and suck hard. He could feel her shaking, hear her breaths changing, her sounds intensifying, and he knew she was about to come. He bit down on her nipple and she screamed out as she shattered on him, leaving him wondering if anyone was about to come banging on the door to check she was ok. She twisted and shook beneath him, and he slowly withdrew his fingers to pull her into his arms and hold her tight, kissing her face and stroking her back as she came down.