Your erotic stories

This is a story about unexpected love, about life lived with a blindfold obscuring a glorious reality…

Parties are successful sometimes, aren’t they? But does everyone look back and say the same thing? To this day I keep telling people – Stephie in particular – that I’m not so sure my party was a great success in itself. But between you and me? Ah, now that’s an entirely different story.

I am shy and very straight. Was shy. Am shy. I don’t know why I am, but I am. I’m not exactly a curvy type but I don’t carry excess fat, and my hair is naturally wavy and naturally the dirty blonde colour I always leave it. Stephie even says that my face is cute and my lips kissable (although to be fair, she’ll say that about a neighbour’s dog). I’m the right side of thirty (always assuming you think twenty-something is the right side) and can even pass for a few years younger than I really am. My point is that I genuinely don’t know why I am/was shy because it’s not as if I’m not trying to hide a horrible figure or horrible face or anything – it is/was just my normal state.

It was, as usual, Stephie who was responsible for the effort to change poor little me (I’m Allie, by the way, as shall become clear). It was Stephie who said that a holiday away from boring Britain would be the perfect medicine for me after I broke up with boring Brian, my boyfriend of some three years. I was, in my defence, a little distracted by the whole “dividing the CD collection” and “reloading the Kindles” activities that, it appears, accompany break-ups of this sort so I can’t be blamed for the choice of destination or even agreeing to go to this apparently well-known French resort where all sorts of things happen.

I was distracted enough that I didn’t even register Stephie telling me that I didn’t need to pack more than a couple of bikini bottoms (only, please note) and a handful of sexy skirts, tops and dresses. To be even fairer to myself, most of the physical packing was even undertaken by my friend while I was busy sorting out which (mostly unused) baking tins were to belong to which former member of the Allie-Brian partnership.

I really only truly woke up when a grinning concierge showed us to our ground floor ‘apartment’.

“Bienvenue – welcome – mesdames. Votre studio!”

I looked around at the spacious room, complete with two beds, a sofa, a table and chairs, an alcove in which a barely used oven sat alongside an over-used fridge and another alcove which, I supposed led to the bathroom. I glanced back at the concierge in time to see his grin broaden considerably as Stephie bent from the waist to recover her purse, the blouse that she was more or less wearing floating around barely concealed breasts. Even from where I stood a few feet away I saw a flash of bright pink nipple bared beneath the silky white material, so lord alone knows what the concierge was seeing. Enough, I gathered, to risk his grin splitting the top half of his head away from the bottom half.

While Stephie provided the young guy with a financial reward to go alongside the physical one, I reminded myself that I was not, under any circumstances, to take any fashion tips from my friend. The promise lasted at least an hour.

*****

“No way!”

“Oh, come on my little prig. Take a look out of the doors and you’ll see that every single woman out there is in bikini bottoms only. And compared to a lot of them you have nothing to be ashamed of, trust me.”

“Stephie, I mean it: no way! And now give me the bikini top.”

We were standing in our room wearing nothing more than two pieces of hopefully waterproof bright white cotton, a broad smile (Stephie’s) and an even broader frown (no need to guess who that belonged to). Despite my loudly stated reticence I did follow Stephie’s advice and peeked out of the doors, hidden from view by a thick lacy curtain.

“There are,” I said, turning back to my friend with a nonsensically triumphant flourish, at least three women out there who are decently covered.”

“You mean prudishly covered.” Stephie pushed past and forced open the door, standing on the threshold with her bared breasts pointing to the South-East (and not at all in the southerly direction that included her feet – they are still proud, but not as proud as she is of them…). “And to make matters a little more honest, the three you’re referring to are respectively, somewhere around a hundred years old, somewhere around two years old, and somewhere about forty stone. Everyone of a decent age and decent shape is topless.”

“That’s as maybe,” I huffed, “But some of us have decency built into our genes.”

“Priggishness, you mean. Oh come on and chill, there’s got to be a dozen cute guys out there and you’re here to get back into the dating game.”

“Dating, maybe, streetwalking, never.”

“It’s a seaside resort, not Fifth Avenue. And you’re not trying to charge them!”

I snorted, “Stephie! The only way any guy here is going to see my bust is if they pay me a fortune!”

“Your breasts, you mean.”

“Bust.

“Tits, even.” Stephie took a deep breath and stared down at her own, “Oh come on, Allie, bare with me!” She giggled at her own ‘joke’.

I turned away, “Give me the top of this thing or I’ll not go out there at all!”

With an exaggerated tut Stephie threw the tiny top at me, “Prig.”

I fiddled the strings around my waist and shrugged, “Just being decent.”

“Prude!”

“Sticks and stones, Stephs,” I sighed, pulling the little white smooth cups over my offending boobs.

“Don’t tempt me,” she muttered, then more brightly added, “But there’s another week to go yet…”

Finally covered to something approaching my satisfaction – but in reality feeling far too close to naked – I followed my brazen but much adored friend outside into the pool area/cattle market.

*****

Before anyone says it, I know. In this day and age, in a faraway sunny resort, among lots of people who are worshipping the sun with much of their bodies, with a reasonable figure and with youth on my side, with all of those things, why would I be so delicate and resistant when it comes to a little topless sunbathing? Simple – I had never done it before and had never been able to be, what to me, felt so daring.

My parents weren’t particularly strict or cloying or anything that might explain my reticence, and nor had I ever had any bad experiences with my clothing (or lack thereof). It was just something innate that had always been with me – I had even been extremely reluctant to shower with the other girls at my school. From the earliest age I could recall I simply found baring anything more than a nun’s view of a decent amount of flesh (more or less none) extremely unsettling.

Following Stephie outside with me wearing a bikini was already for me tantamount to parading naked around a sports stadium on cup final day, let alone any attempt at going out there topless. As it was, I had tied one towel around my waist and was using another as a shoulder wrap, the two items managing to conceal what I was just about (to me) wearing.

I was already regretting allowing Stephie to select what I would be dressed in under the sun, and that helped me force my friend to accept that we would not be sunbathing around the edge of the pool (under the gaze of at least twenty guys) but rather that we would be located high on the lawns banking the ‘leisure area’, far enough back that we would be out of sight of anyone walking around the pool.

“Any further,” Stephie huffed, “and we’ll almost be back home. It’ll take me ten minutes to walk to the pool when I want a swim!”

“It’s nice here,” I told her, slipping the towel from my shoulders to spread on the grass after first checking four times that no one could oversee us. I sat on it and wondered whether I dare be daring and remove the one around my waist.

“Are you going to be like this all week?”

I looked up at my friend, trying to work out whether it was genuine concern for me or more self-centred, Stephs worried that she would be far away from the gawping eyes that she brazenly craved. The hang of her normally proud shoulders, coupled with eyes that almost bled sympathy made me momentarily guilty that I could even think such a thing.

“I’ll be okay,” I told her, “It’s just that all this after the Brian thing… it’s just got me feeling out of my zone. I’ll be alright in a day or two.”

My friend looked long and hard at me, evidently trying to see if I was being straight with her, obviously concerned for me. Finally she took a deep breath and nodded, “I guess that makes sense and I promise I won’t push you into anything that makes you uncomfortable – for a couple of days, at least – but now, given that we’re almost in the next country, can you at least drop the other towel?”

Stephs has a way of making things seem like compromises when they are merely well-disguised wants or demands of her own, but a few seconds thought on this one had me believing that this was a genuine concession. There really wasn’t anyone around just then and we really were in a far-flung resort where nobody knew me anyway. It didn’t make it feel any less daring, I guess, but I untied the towel and let It fall away.

Stephie nodded, “Feel better?”

I glanced down at what seemed like acres of bare flesh with just tiny scraps of cotton covering the most intimate parts. “It feels like I’ve just turned nudist.”

“Liberating, you mean?”

“Daring to the point of stupidity, more like.” I could feel both nipples so close to the edge of the respective cotton shrouds and I swear that I could feel ever single hair on my Stephie-shaved mound almost visible through their covering as well.

“Well just remember, if anyone passes close by – like in the same country – you can always lay flat on your belly.”

“But this bikini doesn’t actually cover a lot of my bum!”

Stephie laughed, “So lay on your back then.”

“Yeah, but then–”

“Oh Allie! Put your sunglasses on, tie your hair up and no one will ever know who was laying out here even if they’re staying in the same hotel, let alone anyone ever finding out back home. Just relax and know you’ve got me by your side and I promise I’ll make sure that no guy bothers you when you don’t want to be bothered, okay?”

It made me feel better straight away. Stephie knows me so well, and for all that she can be a really shameless, daring animal at times, I trust her and – never let her hear me say it – I respect her. I can’t say I was entirely comfortable laying back in my tiny bikini, but I was no longer petrified. I even managed to mutter a very quiet ‘thank you’ and busied myself with hair ties and my sunglasses.

*****

My friend was as good as her word and we went back to the same secluded spot for the next two days, clad no differently and with Stephie on bar-running duties when drinks were called for. I was a little wary of imbibing too much wine as I have a tendency to lose some of my inhibitions when I drink too much, but even with that Stephie kept an eye on me and warned me when I was starting to get a little giddy (or ‘normal’, as she put it). On the third day I even let her untie the top of my bikini when I was (very deliberately) lying on my belly so that I could get a more even tan on my back.

By the fourth morning I was genuinely relaxed and even starting to feel as if I was cramping my friend’s style a little.

“We can stop here,” I suggested to her as we started the climb towards our distant sunbathing spot, the ‘here’ referring to a point on the banking surrounding the pool area, visible to anyone who happened to be relaxing at the top corner of the pool – very few, I had noticed, but some.

Stephie grinned, “My, we are chilling at last, aren’t we? You are sure though? After all, if one of the guys walks entirely the wrong way from his lounger to the bar area he might pass this way after five minutes.”

“It is not that far,” I laughed, “Even cheap binoculars could see us from the poolside.”

“Oh we really are relaxing!” Stephie laughed, “At this rate by Christmas I might even get you topless.”

“That,” I told her firmly, “won’t happen in a decade of Christmases. Just be happy we’re closer and aim to get is within another twenty yards. That might be possible this week.”

I wasn’t joking much, either. The second I sat down, the feeling of displaying too much flesh started to bubble under the surface and it wasn’t until another two hours – and three glasses of wine – had passed before I started to fully relax once more.

Stephie, as well as being a great friend, was also a great reader of my moods and by the late afternoon she knew that I was relaxed enough – and in need of distraction enough – to suggest that we attend a small party being organised by one of the other guests.

“It’s a he not a she and he’s invited pretty much everyone along to his apartment room at ten tonight.” She told me, filling me in on a couple of details I’d requested.

“And you’re sure he’s an okay guy?”

“I am, but given that there’ll be twenty of us there, I’m not sure it really matters anyway.”

I shrugged and nodded. After boring Brian and maybe because of boring Brian I was in need of some distraction. Nothing too serious or heavy (no dates or sex in other words), but a little light entertainment in the middle of a finally relaxing holiday. I had already adored my best friend before we came away, but now I could appreciate just how timely and perfect her intervention was, there was an element of true love mixed in. (and no, nothing like that, thank you very much!)

My loving regard took a step down the ladder when I looked at the clothes she had chosen for me to wear to the party, later in our room.

“That blouse is way too low, the skirt’s too short and you’ve forgotten to put a bra out!”

“No it isn’t, no it isn’t, and no I haven’t.”

“Stephs, there is simply no way–”

“Oh shush! Allie, you’re gorgeous and we’re a million miles from home. Just relax for once and have every second male head staring your ways.

I looked at my friend, now thoroughly confused, “Every second male head?”

Stephie nodded, “Sure. Because if you leave Ms Prude at home for once and dress that way, I’ll wear a blouse two inches lower, a skirt two inches higher and one less item of underwear!”

I stared at the tiny items laying on the bed, “You wouldn’t dare,” I laughed before full realising who I was gambling with. “I mean, I simply couldn’t wear these things!”

“They cover everything. What’s the problem? I’ll be the one only just decent.”

Stephs had a point – and I’d had too much wine. Just for once, after two years with a real bore and despite so long wanting to be covered in oilskins, I really could relax and enjoy my friend’s choice of clothes for me. They were a little bit showy but they really did cover everything well enough – and even though I knew Stephie could be really daring, I very much doubted she’d dare go out in what she was suggesting… there again, if she really would then I suddenly really wanted to see it. And it would make sure that no one was going to be looking too closely at me! When Stephs added ‘Please, Allie?’ to her cajoling I just had to relent.

“Well, okay then but – and this has to be a promise – but want to be back here with no one more than you by no later than one’ o’clock, okay?”

“No one with you sure, but can’t I pull?”

“Stephs, for a start you’re married,” (She is, to Tim who’s a great guy even if I do mix him up with his twin all the time), “and secondly we sleep in the same room and I really don’t want to be an audience to your games!”

“Well instead of sitting back and watching, you could always join–”

“Not a chance… oh,” I added as Stephs collapsed on the bed, giggling, “A joke in very poor taste!”

“You falling for something doesn’t make it poor taste,” my friend hiccupped, “But I agree to your terms, I promise.”

An hour later we left our room and headed to number eleven, the party destination, with me somehow feeling more uncovered than Stephie, despite the fact that every time she bent over I could see her nipples from the front and I can’t even type what I could see from the rear… And incidentally, I still have no idea why she needed to bend over for anything, let alone half a dozen times between the two rooms!

*****

As soon as we arrived I could feel myself starting to relax and enjoy things. I even let myself forget all about the story Stephie told of her sister-in-law Wendy and a few glasses of wine when their husbands were celebrating a birthday. I forgot all about the potential dangers of wine and Stephie… I even forgot all about the fact that I was decidedly short of lacy under-things in the bra department until I started to bop along to some ancient track from the era of my parents – and which I suddenly found incredibly insistent when it came to dancing. The sensation of my unprotected nipples rubbing rhythmically against the inside of my silky blouse wasn’t I – decided once I had made sure there was no chance of either of them escaping – such a bad feeling after all. So help me, I even caught one of the guys staring at my chest region and never did anything more than turn away as I bopped around the room.

It was well past midnight when Stephie sidled up to me bearing a couple of brimming glasses of whatever wine it was that we were, I admit, knocking back rather freely.

“Here you go, Allie, and let me say it’s great to see you having such a good time and getting so many deservedly interested looks!”

I took the glass and half drained it, “I am having fun,” I told her, “but there’s only been one guy looking and he wasn’t exactly super-hot.”

Stephie gave me a slightly lop-sided, slightly tipsy grin, “Methinks my darling Allie isn’t paying too much attention. You’re getting more looks than I am and my tits are almost hanging out here. No fair!” She gave a long giggle.

“I wish!” I protested before my brain could take its usual censorial role. I stopped dead and stared at Stephs, my mind whirling. It was the wine, of course, wasn’t it? I couldn’t really be wishing that my friend was right, could I? I didn’t want loads of guys I didn’t even know staring at me even if I was more properly dressed than Stephs, surely?

Stephie broke into my slightly panicked reverie, “You mean you really didn’t notice? Come on, Als, let’s go prove it to you. Put the glass down and come and dance with me!”

I knew – really knew – that if I dared do that I would find out for sure and it really could be true that guys were staring. But so what if they were, right? A look doesn’t hurt, doesn’t make me anything but a young woman out having some good, clean fun. If they stared real hard they were probably only going to be checking out my friend anyway.

Wine – and Stephie it seems – can blinker you that way.

We danced. Guys stared. And it wasn’t just Stephie’s blouse or skirt that their eyes followed. To my shock – and not horror any more – some of them were watching me move and, reader, I loved the attention. I wriggled and swayed, and even came close to imitating some of Stephie’s deeper bends and twists, even if I would never have showed off quite such intimate parts of my body.

At one thirty or so the music slowed and it was only a fraction of a second before a guy headed for the table where Stephie and I had more or less collapsed – more from tired feet than too much wine, of course.

“Here we go,” Stephie whispered/giggled in my ear, “You first, I bet.”

I looked down at my friend’s skirt which was so high on her thighs that I could tell she didn’t need any trimming ‘down there’, “Not a shingle… single chance. He’ll be after you!”

“Care for a dance?” The voice was casual but there was an underlying tension that for some reason made my heart twitch.

When Stephie nudged my arm and pointed up with her eyes my heart gave another twitch. Stephie had won her bet.

I rose, took the guy’s hand, and drifted into the middle of the room, sweeping into a gentle embrace before starting to sway with the tunes, with the stranger.

“I’m Sean,” he said softly, “and I have been watching you all night. You really are a gorgeous girl, you know?”

“Girl?” I laughed.

“Woman, then. Lovely eyes, lovely smile, and a lovely figure if you don’t mind my saying it?”

I sighed, oddly contented, “I don’t mind at all.” I meant it.

Sean moved closer and I could feel my breasts beneath the silky blouse squashing up gently against his chest, could feel a distinct pressure against my belly, could feel him bend a little, could feel his right hand slip up the back of my left thigh, under my skirt and–

“Stop right there!” I jumped back.

“Oh come on, love,” Sean tried to drag me back close to him, “We all know you’re just playing the little-girl-next-door routine but you’re as horny as fuck really!” His left hand closed over my right breast. He grinned from ear to ear.

I don’t think I’ve ever slapped anyone so hard.

Stephie was by my side in a split second it seemed – certainly about an hour earlier than the stinging in my hand began to subside. “Oh God, my angel, come here!” She pulled me into a tight embrace, apparently suddenly sober, “If I’d had any idea he was such a piece of shit I’d never have let him… oh fuck it.” She released me for a second and I heard rather than saw a second slap.

I couldn’t help it – I laughed. Then I grabbed my friend again and let her lead me back to the table where we finished the last of the wine and from where we declined the two other offers of dances we had – each (I won that bet, to my slightly addled shock). We were back in our room – alone but for each other – by two, and asleep in our skirts and very little else by two minutes past.

*****

The hangover was far less nasty than I’d feared when I first woke and a couple of coffees and a paracetamol sandwich had me more or less feeling human by eleven. Stephie was even faster to recover but took things easy. She also apologised to me somewhere in the region of a thousand times, blaming herself for, as I tried to point out to her, the chauvinism of others.

A little after eleven, tiring of the string of ‘sorry, Allie’ mantras, I slipped on my bikini bottoms, and stood staring at the top. “Stephie?” I interrupted another apology.

“Sorr… er, what?”

“I want the most honest answer in the world from you, understand me?”

Stephie came and stood beside me, “Sure, Als, it’s the least I can–”

“Oh stop it! Can I take that as a yes?”

My friend nodded, evidently not trusting herself to speak without the ‘s’ word or its equivalent making an appearance.

“Right,” I took a deep breath, “We’re here for two more days after today, yes?”

She nodded, “We leave on the third morning from now.”

“You know I’ve never gone topless before, right? Well…”

“Allie?”

I took a deep breath, wondering even to myself where the thought had come from, where this surge of… well, girl-power had arrived from, “I want to now.” And I did.

Apparently it was easier for me to understand than it was for Stephie, “You want to… I mean, you… after last night and all… you really–”

“Yes, really! Come on Stephs, I need help here.” All I really needed was for her to take my hand and drag me outside still topless but now that the moment was upon me I couldn’t even bring myself to ask for that much assistance.

Fortunately, my best friend is also a mind-reader.

“Just one question then, Als. Are you really sure about this?”

“Well, yeah.”

Stephie nodded, back in control. She reached around me, grabbed our bags and towels, shoved sunglasses and sunhats into the bags and took my hand. “No hesitation, follow me.”

With that she headed for the door, almost dragging me behind her, the bags and towels looking almost as clumsy as me in her other hand. Before I knew what was happening my feet were on the tiles outside my room and in another second I was marching along behind my friend, feeling more exposed than ever before in my life.

I thought for one moment that she was going to take us right to the back of the grounds where we had started out on the first morning. Instead she stopped on the banking where we had spent most of the previous day, exposed to the looks of anyone and everyone. As she laid the towels down and I stood there trying so hard not to cover my naked breasts, I realised that she was quite right – being somewhere unseen would have been pointless given what I was trying to do. And that thought fired a spark deep inside me.

Before settling onto the towel next to my friend I turned and surveyed the crowded pool area. One or two heads – male heads mostly – turned my way. They looked at me. Looked at my topless form. I felt a flush, a chill, but also a thrill. I sat slowly.

“Als?” Stephie said beside me

“Hm?”

“You do realise, don’t you, that your tits are still milky white compared to the skin around which has already gotten a lot darker?”

“I guess,” I said, looking down at the almost glaringly white skin below.

“Well, Allie, from where they’re sitting they probably think you’ve still got your white bikini on!”

“Oh, Stephie!”

“I’m joking, I’m joking! Bikini tops don’t have nipples, right?”

I looked back down and couldn’t help but agree that there were at least two things that were definite giveaways. The rest of the skin of my breasts was, however, very pale. “I look stupid,” I moaned, suddenly more concerned about how natural I looked than the fact that I was half-naked in public for the first time in my life. I did however thoroughly love the feeling of the air across that part of me that had been covered for almost three decades when it came to the great outdoors.

All of that is not to say that the overall experience wasn’t alarming in its own way. There’s a perfect word for it – discomfited. I just didn’t feel comfortable that way and although I knew – was already positive – that I’d get used to it, I still wasn’t ready to fully relax and enjoy the sensations (both the air and the looks, although the latter was most unusual and troubling).

Stephie, again using her innate mind-reading talent was very quiet that day and made sure that she was the only one who ever needed to go close to any other sunbathers or pool users (or bar users – we were in dire need of dog pelts rather than just hairs of the said animals). She also refused no fewer than three party invitations although she did remark to me that there was an altogether higher level of interest all of a sudden. She put that down to my topless-ness although I personally still believe it was more to do with the impromptu slapping that had taken placed the previous night.

Whatever the reason, I was glad. By the end of the afternoon I felt stupidly exhausted. Probably thanks to the totally alien sensation of wearing just bikini bottoms most of the day, and for the first (and only time) on that break, I was in bed and asleep by ten o’clock.

*****

I woke to find our room empty and a note from Stephie saying that she had woken super-early after her own early night and had gone in search of breakfast for once. She’s added that she would be back by nine and for me to wait for her before going outside.

I admired and was grateful for her caring nature when it came to me, but I already knew that I had changed over the course of the previous 36 hours. I was even, I had to admit to myself, looking forward to the sensation of fresh air on my naked breasts and, I can’t lie, the looks that I would receive. I found it so hard to believe after so long, but it was true. I could even feel an unexpected heat at my groin! It even felt more than a little moist!

I even felt that I felt it, if you get my drift.

I looked at my phone acting as my watch. It was 8.45. I had a sudden urge to shower before Stephie returned and had just finished gasping and shuddering before she did get back. If you get my drift again.

That day passed in an altogether easier way, even though I spent all of our time outside topless. Stephie had come up with what she hoped was a clever way of stopping the rest of my skin getting much darker while letting the white flesh of my breasts catch up without getting too pink – and to my surprise it seemed to be working. My surprise was lessened when she told me that she’s used the same technique on her butt the previous summer after switching to a thong bikini.

It was the next day, though, when other thoughts came and settled in next to the new ‘look at me, I’m topless in the sun’ ones.

There was, of course, only one day left after that one but I don’t think urgency had anything to do with it. I think I was just coming to terms that in that unique environment – the overseas holiday – it was perfectly acceptable to strip down to just bikini bottoms. And what’s more, if it felt good to be seen topless, to be observed with my breasts bared for all to see, well so what? It was natural and what I felt deep inside was personal and private. No matter that my showers were taking a few minutes longer.

But it went further than just a new appreciation. There was, I could feel it, a new sensation – a desire to experience more while there was still time before we returned to the UK. To take a while to find out what the new me might like to experience, even.

Despite all of that self-confession, there still remained the problem of who I fundamentally was. The timid little mouse. And that is where my Stephie and her mind-reading skills took centre stage.

A little after three o’clock that afternoon she returned from the bar with two glasses of cool wine. “Allie… I think we should have our turn at throwing a party tonight. What do you say?”

I stared up at her and eventually tilted my sunglasses away from my nose, “You mean invite a load of strangers into our room?”

“On our terms, sure, why not? We deserve a little shindig before we have to start thinking of boring Britain.” She paused as she sat back down, “And I think it would do you good, as well.”

The comment was simple but laden with hidden meaning. I couldn’t tell what she was hinting at, for sure. Well, not until she added: “You’ve started to look as cute as you really are, maybe you can act it now as well…”

I turned a curious eye towards her, “I’m not sure what you’re suggesting but can I remind you that I am on the rebound and you are a married woman?”

“Was I suggesting anything untoward?” She asked with a mock innocence that wouldn’t have fooled a nun in a coma, “And anyway, who said anything about me being unfaithful again?”

“Well, no one said anything– hey! Again?”

Stephie snorted a laugh, “Don’t get all Miss Prissy on me, I never start anything. If Tim strays, however, I feel that I have a free go due myself.”

Tim, her husband, had certainly succumbed to temptation before but to her credit I had never realised that Stephie ever had some revenge fun of her own. A thought struck me, “Has he strayed recently then?”

“That,” Stephie laughed softly, “is something I won’t even discuss with a best friend. Let’s just say that I might consider a tiny little amount of ‘revenge flinging’ later – nothing to scare you away though.”

I shrugged.

Stephie sat further up, “Is that a ‘yes’ then?”

“I don’t,” I said slowly, “see why not. Just please promise me that you won’t give me a reason to regret this decision?”

She punched the air, “Yay! And nay, I won’t give you any reason at all!”

And do you know something? I honestly think that we both believed her.

*****

At half past nine I was still undecided as to what to wear and Stephie, friend or not, was hardly helping matters but feeding me more wine and what was beginning to sound like dares rather than suggestions.

“Stephs, if I wore a halter top like this my boobs would be on show before the second drinks were served!”

“The word is ‘tits’ unless you want to sound like a little girl, and there might be a bit of room in there but you wouldn’t slip out.”

“Well your tits are almost certain to slip out of that stupid little tank top and I don’t want to raise the count to four.”

Stephie giggled – a sound that I should always remember represents a warning – “At least you didn’t say ‘no’ this time, and if my tits slip out, so what? Perhaps that would count as my – very mild –’revenge fling’, and at least everyone here has seen them clearly enough already!”

That last comment was true but I already knew that there was a world of difference between seeing them bared in the sunbathing area and seeing them bared here (even though the actual experience hadn’t been suffered by me at that point). And that was without translating the experience a few hundred miles – I was already starting to think that none of this would ever come into the equation back home, and was very grateful for the difference. I let out a humph and picked up the halter necked top again. “Well…” I began, that difference between here and home starting to make me think differently already, “I suppose–”

“Great!”

I know how a pig feels now when it’s hog-tied by a cowboy. Stephie had me in that top in a matter of seconds. Somehow I didn’t feel very much more dressed. She also poured me another wine, and after drinking that I didn’t really mind about not feeling more dressed. It helped that her silly little tank top slipped off her boobs – tits – twice while she was fiddling around with my ties. I was getting increasingly giggly but through all the wine and wildness, it was Stephie’s words that I clung onto and which took me through to a place where I could finally be honest with myself after all the years of being such a prude. I was going to love the attention that night.

*****

The first guest – a guy of no more than twenty – arrived a little after ten and I greeted him at the door with a broad, possibly silly, smile. The smile might even have widened a little when he didn’t even try to hide the fact that he gave me a real once over with eyes that were not quite on stalks, but were certainly in no danger of drowning.

Stephie and I alternated with the door-answering duties, and alternated behind our makeshift bar (a table covered in cans, bottles and glasses), both of us almost visibly wallowing in the mercifully hands-free attention that we were receiving.

We danced, we laughed, we all sang along to terrible pop tunes. Stephie and I looked upon our little party empire and smiled. My halter top stayed tied, and my breasts – okay, tits, sheesh – stayed covered. Even Stephie’s tank top only slid down once. We were both in short skirts and this time they were both very short – but we both wore panties, little lacy ones in my case, little spider webs in hers and – get this – one time when I bent to get more bottles of beer from the fridge I didn’t even cover up too fast when said panties were obviously visible for a few seconds.

As the morning hours wore on we slowed the music and two of the younger guys who had evidently not been witness to our slap happy time the night before asked each of us to dance. Stephie looked at me with eyes that held both a question and the preferred answer – and when I gave a gentle nod, I loved the look of relief that passed through them. I was sure then that she really would have declined had I done the same.

Not that there was any chance of me declining an offer by then. The wine, Stephie’s constant urging, and a whole new, experimental, me was eager to get close to a guy, to feel him against me. I wasn’t too sure about what might happen if hands were too eager once more, but I no longer cared too much about the initial contact that might entail. As it was, the young man – Danny – was as gallant as he was apparently inexperienced. When he told me that I was a real good looking young woman I believed that he meant it and even when he guessed that my age must be somewhere not far north of twenty I had the impression that it wasn’t a complete lie to try to impress me.

At the end of the first slow track he held on a tad hopefully. I looked at Stephie next to us with her young man and gave a subtle shrug. She smiled and turned back to the guy. I copied her and Danny’s grin nearly blinded me.

He pulled me a little closer as the track got going and the moment of resistance when I felt his hardness against my belly, my tits crushing against his chest – reminders of the night before – was just that, a moment. His hand slid up from my waist to my shoulders and the skin there, the top leaving a lot of shoulder blade open to the evening air. The touch felt like a gentle buzz of electricity and I gave the smallest of shudders.

“Sorry,” Danny began, I just–”

“It’s okay,” I pulled him a little tighter feeling like a cross between a mother and a teenager at her first dance.

Danny’s hands were on my bare shoulders again and I could feel his body pressed tightly against mine. A picture of myself, topless on the grass outside, sprang to my mind and I wondered how good a look he had gotten of my bared br… my bared tits earlier. A deep part of me hoped it had been a very good look indeed. It was my turn to pull us even tighter together.

*****

I glanced at Stephie from time to time over the next few records and each time she spare me an encouraging smile, occasionally an almost surprised one, and when our guests started to leave she took me to one side and told me to keep dancing with Danny and she would make sure everyone left properly. I asked her quickly if she was going to keep dancing with the last guy I had seen her with, a lanky but cute guy with long black hair. She shrugged and just told me to look after Danny.

I went back to him and resumed out interrupted dance.

He leaned into my ear and whispered, “Shouldn’t I leave now as well? Surely you want to be up in the morning and outside again. You said it was your last day.”

“I’ll be out there sometime…” I paused and let myself relax just enough to add, “You’ll have plenty of time to see me out there topless again.”

“I didn’t mean that I wanted–”

I laughed softly, “It’s okay, you know? I understand you were just looking out for me in an altogether more innocent way…” Another pause, “But to be honest, I don’t really mind either way.” My heart was pounding.

It nearly burst out of my chest when he almost reluctantly said, “Well, you are kinda really cute to look at. Kinda hard to ignore. You’ve got a lovely figure and… well… it’s all lovely.”

Stephie chose that moment to glance at me and that gave me the strength to say, just like I imagined she might, “You mean I have lovely… tits?”

Danny gave a soft gulp and slowly nodded, “Y-yeah. Like, they are just so cute. You don’t mind me saying that?”

“Not at all,” I told him, aware that Stephie was now close enough to hear most of what was said. It gave me even more strength, “I like that you think that way.” One deep breath, “I’ve discovered that I really enjoy certain people seeing me so… relaxed, and, well… that is…” My new found boldness was seeping away, despite my attempts to block its path, “I really like that you, er, liked looking, and was… well, thinking… imagining…”

Stephie’s voice close by my ear startled me almost as much as Danny I guess, “What my gorgeous friend is hinting at Danny, is that she loves eyes upon her, but not quite as much as hands…” She span away leaving both of us open mouthed, and me in particular wondering just how good those mind-reading skills were.

Before I could even come up with an estimate I felt Danny’s thumbs slip under the either side of my halter and move slowly down from my shoulders until they rested against the small mounds of my breasts, naked beneath the thin fabric. I looked up into his eyes to find them seeking my approval – or at least praying that I wasn’t going to be mad at him. The breath was catching in my throat at the feel of this young man’s flesh on such an intimate area of mine, but there was no disapproval in the look I gave him or in the thoughts that flashed through my mind. I let my eyes close for a moment, let my pleasure shine brightly in them as I opened the lids once more. My lips parted a little, the softest and quietest of moans passing over them. “I think she might be right,” I whispered.

My lips parted wider and I moaned just a little louder as Danny’s hands moved inwards sliding slowly, slowly underneath the halter and up the side of each breast until the tips of his thumbs reached my nipples, now almost painfully erect. I gave the tiniest of nods and leaned into our first full kiss, the touching of our lips so very gentle until his hands pushed the material of my top inwards even further, his fingers spread over my now naked breasts. As he gave a gentle squeeze I moaned more loudly yet into his mouth, my tongue darting between his lips.

How long we kissed for, standing there, gripping each other so tightly, I have no idea. I didn’t even realise that the room had emptied entirely other than for Stephie, nor have any notion of who might have witnessed the passionate embrace. I didn’t care.

But I did care when Stephie coughed politely from our side, “Allie?”

“What?” I snapped.

“Enough, angel. Let Danny go back to his room and we’ll see him tomorrow, okay? We’ll have a busy day.”

My eyes opened wide as I stared at her, my mind all too aware of Danny’s hands slipping from my top, “What the… heck?” I looked back at the guy, “Danny, don’t listen to her, I–”

“Danny,” Stephie said softly and easily, “Just go now and Allie will come and see you tomorrow, okay? You’ve not done anything wrong, so don’t fret. It’s just that I have something I need to discuss with her right now.”

“Don’t listen to her!” I almost yelled at him as he started to back away, “She’s not my mother and whatever she’s got to say can wait!”

I felt Stephie’s hand on my arm, restraining me, “Allie, please do as I say?”

Danny was evidently more intimidated by Stephie than he was desperate for me – a situation which I failed to see the funny side of until a long time later. He turned, muttered a ‘see you’ and ‘you were really great’, and dashed from the room.

I turned on Stephie immediately, “You bitch! Just because I finally got a guy and you got nothing you have to go and… and fuck things up!” I never swear as a rule, but the cursing didn’t seem to faze Stephie. She stepped forward and put her arms around me. “Let go you evil cow!”

“Allie, angel? Listen, huh?”

“I will not listen to you ever again you… you jealous, evil, bitch!”

“Allie, it was just going from nothing to everything way too fast after all you’ve been through, okay?” I went to interrupt her but she shushed me and kept talking, “Allie, you were brilliant. Sexy, gorgeous, really turned it on – turned the guys on as well and not just Danny – but Allie, my lovely Allie, trust me, you need just a few calm, deep breaths before you choose what to do next.”

I tried to shrug free but Stephie was holding me tight. “You hate me!”

“Allie,” she hugged a little harder for a second, “Allie I don’t hate you. I love you! You’ve always been like the sister I never had and I will never ever see anything bad happen to you if I can help it, okay?”

“You’re just spoiling my chance for fun!”

“Not at all. I’ll help you get any and all the fun you could ever want – anything at all – but I also need to make sure there’s some balance there, some forethought. Allie, I just don’t want to see you ever hurt by another guy, that’s all, and I want to see you able to respect yourself. I really do love you, Allie.”

I was about to try to shrug her away from me, maybe even to chase after Danny, but that last sentence somehow seemed to take the wind out of my sails. It also seemed to break down the last of the barriers I had so studiously built up both through my adult life and especially in the last couple of years with boring Brian. I didn’t want to, tried so hard to stop myself… but I burst into tears. And not the pretty little sniffles that Hollywood would have us all cry. I was sobbing in seconds.

Stephie held me and stroked my hair, the two of us standing in the middle of the room, all alone now in the small hours of the morning.

It felt so comforting and so unusual, so rare this contact between us even though we had been friends for many years. It still hurt that my best friend had interrupted me just when I thought I was finally breaking free but deep down I knew she was right – this was rebound in its most dangerous form and as she held me there I knew as well that being touched and kissed by some strange guy wasn’t even what I wanted or was looking for.

Stephie had encouraged me to be more daring but really what was the big deal about sunbathing topless in a distant foreign land where 99% of the women here did the same? She wasn’t really encouraging me to be daring, just to feel how lovely it is to have the sun on more of my body, the gentle breeze caressing my skin, to receive admiring looks because, damn it, I was a cute enough woman still.

I realised then that Stephie knew all this. She was looking out for me just like she had a hundred times before. A thousand maybe. And when he said she loved me I knew now that she meant it.

With the realisation, the acknowledgement of what should have been so very obvious, a surge of elation washed through me, making me gasp. I stood straight up.

Stephie cocked her head to one side, her arms slipping down lower on my back, “What’s up, Als?”

I shook my head and gave a gentle laugh, “I just realised you mean it, is all.”

“That narrows it down. Mean what, exactly?”

“I just mean I realise you do look out for me, and, well…” I took a deep breath, “that you must love me to be such a great friend.”

She cocked her head to the other side, “Glad you finally noticed, but I figure someone has to watch out for you, my naïve angel, and,” she paused and gave a wry smile, “yeah, that’s all to do with love.”

I had no expectation, no forethought and in retrospect, no real clue as to what triggered the barriers to break. Kindness? Security? A hot steamy French night? I don’t know to this day and I’m not so sure I even want to know. At the time, the trigger was just that last word that Stephie had said – ‘love’. As she straightened her head I leaned forward and planted a short but firm kiss on her lips. Full lips, I noticed.

Stephie’s jerked her head back, but slowly, uncertainty in her blue eyes, “That’s… a thank you, I take it? And most welcome but not really necessary, you’re–”

I leaned in and kissed her again, my mind seeming to short out, but a deep welling of love down in the pit of my stomach making me pull my friend, my Stephie, closer. The kiss was just a little longer than the first but allowed me a tiny moment to savour the softness and warmth of those full lips. A tremor ran through me.

My friend pulled her head back again so that she could look into my eyes, “You know I’m a married woman, don’t you? Only that kiss was a tad warm for a thank you…”

“It was an ‘I love you too’ one,” I blurted out, now sure that I’d taken a step too far, offended Stephie. I frowned and glanced down, “But… you’re still holding me…” It was almost a question and I’m not sure which one of us it was intended for.

It was Stephie who answered, her voice suddenly low and quiet, “Yes, and I’m seriously contemplating returning that last kiss. The ‘I love you too’ one.”

Our eyes were locked. I took a deep breath, but there was no calmness in me. The feeling of love was now raging through my chest and into my throat. “Fifteen years we’ve known each other and I never realised…”

“it would be more than a holiday friendship kiss, you know?” Stephie was now whispering.

“And you’re a married woman.”

“A straight married woman,” Stephie’s voice was almost too quiet to hear.

“Who’s holding a straight girlfriend.”

“I’m normally so sure about these things but not any more…” Stephie shook her head and gave a soft laugh, “Not at all.”

My beautiful friend leaned forward and our lips met hesitantly, our eyes still locked and widening. We both turned out heads to the same side for a moment then I switched sides. Then, oh then, Stephie’s hands tightened on my back and she hugged me so firmly. The kiss was suddenly firmer, then firmer still. My mind dissolved into love and white sparks and I pressed back.

I had by then kissed many, many times. In friendship, in desire, in what I had thought was love, but that kiss with Stephie was sending explosions throughout my body. I recall easing one hand onto the back of her head to ensure she couldn’t end it before I wanted her too, then realised that there was a hand entwined in my own hair. And then… oh and then I realised her lips had parted just a fraction. A tiny amount that was the biggest invitation I had ever received.

I suddenly knew beyond any doubt that I needed to taste those lips more fully, that I needed to probe that tiny gap… My tongue, as hesitant as a new born foal trying to stand for the first time, slid along Stephie’s lower lip, then back, a little deeper across the surface. And as it reached the centre…

Oh I can barely draw breath enough to carry on typing here… as it reached the centre of Stephie’s glorious mouth, the tip of my tongue touched the tip of hers as she sought out the gap that was forming in my own lips. There was a pause, and now the look that was passed between our still-locked eyes was one of pure love and pure need, all spiced with shock and awe.

My mouth widened in time with my friend’s, our tongues entwined and pressed and tasted as they explored each other’s lips and the deeper.

The kiss lasted for minutes or hours before Stephie leant back, gasping a little, “This, my darling Allie, is turning seriously hot and seriously serious. I was trying to tell you not to jump into things…”

“Fifteen years I’ve know you,” I managed though my own panting breath, “Hardly jumping quickly.”

“Have you any idea what we’re doing here?”

“Actually, none at all,” I told her with a shrug, “Except I really do love you. Just in more ways than I had ever imagined.”

I don’t know which of us was more surprised by my words, but it was Stephie who managed the laugh. “You’re a beautiful woman in every respect.” With that she leaned forward once more and resumed the kiss, one hand back in my hair the other now gliding up and down my back.

I pressed against her, amazed to find my body suddenly aroused in every way, delighting in the feel of Stephie’s breasts crushed against mine, exulting in the pressure between our bellies and the amazing heat that was building deep in my groin. As our mouths opened wider and the kiss became hungrier, I felt love spread through every artery and vein, my entire body tingling and hot.

Stephie finally broke the kiss long enough to gasp, “I haven’t the faintest idea what the hell we’re supposed to be doing next but I have the strongest feeling that I need to see you topless again.”

I unlocked my hands from her hair and quickly untied the halter, letting it fall to my waist where our locked bodies halted its fall until Stephie stepped back. It fell to the floor and I felt more bared, more naked than I had even felt on my first trip out into the sun like that. But as Stephie’s eyes roamed down to that nakedness I almost gasped aloud at the joy and excitement I suddenly felt. My mind sizzled and sparked and from nowhere came the most urgent of cries,

“Well,” I said slowly, “you’re the one who got me this way, you should be the one to cover me… with your hands maybe? Your mouth even?”

“I’m not used to my little Allie coming up with the leading ideas but… oh…”

With that Stephie’s hands hovered, shaking very slightly, for a moment over the hot, smooth flesh of my breasts. I’m not sure to this day whether I leaned into her palms, or whether she pressed them against me – or whether it was a little of both – but in seconds her hands were cupping the heat of my breasts and when she gave the tiniest of squeezes I almost climaxed right there. When she dipped her head and her lips replaced her hand over my left nipple, I was back to the edge of climax in a second.

I’ve no idea where the boldness or bravery came from but I managed to gasp, “Oh Stephie, if you need to know how good that is making me feel, just touch the front of my little skirt!”

When the suction against my left nipple increased in intensity and I felt the grazing of her teeth, and when her free hand pressed first against the skirt, then lifted it, pressed instead against the little pair of cotton panties beneath… oh, then… then Stephie knew how much this meant to me.

She released my breasts form hand and mouth, took her other hand from my damp panties. “Allie, my Allie. Show me it all. Feed my love, and my lust!”

My fingers fumbled for a moment with the zipper on my skirt and then it was down and open without a further moment’s consideration. I let it fall, delighting in my best friend’s eager gaze. Then my fingers hooked underneath the waistband of my knickers and I eased them down my thighs until gravity took then to the floor. I freed them then lifted one foot then the other, unhooking and discarding my heels until I stood naked and steaming in front of Stephie.

“Oh jeez Allie you are truly gorg–”

As she reached to caress a breast my alien mind took over and driven by these new, wild feelings, I said, “Not until you’re wearing as much as me.”

Stephie gave a slightly strangled laugh and straightened up. “Wow, no wonder I love you so much!”

In seconds she had almost torn the clothes from her body and stood before me as naked as I was. We looked deep into each other’s eyes and then she laughed, causing me to give her a quizzical look.

“I may,” she said, “be the supposedly worldly wise one, but do you realise I don’t have a clue what to do here?”

I shrugged, “You’re certainly not alone there, but I have a feeling…”

“That we’re about to discover some ways>”

“Precisely,” I managed, just before our bodies locked together in the tightest of embraces.

I kissed her beautiful lips first then realised all we needed to know, all we needed to do, was offer up to the other just what we loved being done to ourselves. My lips moved from hers to her cheek then across to her ear where they lingered, kissing and nipping until I craned lower and kissed the smooth skin of her neck below her ear.

Stephie almost crushed me in the tightest of hugs before I felt her lips on my neck and knew then that I was doing things right for once. I let my mouth drift lower, onto her collarbone and then across to the little hollow underneath it where I paused to lick and kiss. Stephie moaned softly and I eased her away from me, bending lower still so that my lips travelled down to the gentle swell of her left breast.

I circled the proud pink nipple with tiny kisses, my nose brushing across its hardness each time my mouth passed beneath it, until finally I could take the desire no longer. I kissed the tip of the nipple, bringing a small mewling noise from my friend before it grew into a full-bodied groan as I drew the entire length of that nipple into my eager mouth. More moans followed as a I suckled, sucked and gently nipped, my left hand squeezing her right breast as I attended to that gorgeous left nipple, simultaneously experiencing the touch and taste of a breast for the first time in my adult life.

Every groan and moan brought me so much joy that I was constantly on the verge of climax and becoming more eager for new tastes and touch sensations with every second.

My mouth almost reluctantly released the nipple and I moved lower and lower, kissing each rib before letting them caress the sweet softness of Stephie’s belly. I moved down, on my knees now, and kissed the hardness of her left hip, then down the crease of flesh between her belly and her left leg, her heat palpable to my cheek.

I moved lower, then, but kept my mouth, my eager lips in check, attending now to her long, smooth thigh resisting Stephie’s groans and the tug of her hand in my hair. I kissed every inch of that gorgeous, long thigh, stopping at her knee, then leaned slightly further inwards, starting my way back up again, this time with my lips caressing the supremely soft skin of her inner thigh.

As my head rose, her moans increased in intensity and volume, but when I skipped for her upper thigh to her belly, they became a wail of frustration. I drew back for a few seconds, my eyes locked on the most intimate of places on my friend’s body until finally the frustration overcame me as well.

I plunged forward, my tongue seeking that hot – and now that I felt it – very wet slit. I paused again, this time to catch my breath and to let Stephie collapse onto one of the twin beds. When I was sufficiently oxygenated and my wonderful friend was stable on her back on the bed, I pressed forward once more, my lips meeting hers again but in an entirely more intimate, beautiful way.

I licked the length of her labia, up then down – then pressed my tongue inside her, pressed the bridge of my nose against the small, now exposed nub of her prominent clitoris. Stephie groaned so loudly as I began to lick and suck and nibble, to press my tongue as deep into her as I could. I began to rub at her clit with one thumb, my other hand sliding under her butt to help increase the pressure between us.

Juices began to flood my mouth as I sucked and now swallowed and I could feel a deep, deep trembling in those long thighs that moved wider apart as I pressed, sucked, swallowed and rubbed, massaged her.

I was forever on the verge of climax myself but I could have kept it all back for Stephie – for now I just wanted and waited her pleasure. I moved my mouth higher, taking her hard clit between my lips and teeth, sucking and licking.

With an almost guttural roar, the trembling in her thighs become a fluttering then a pulsing in Stephie’s belly. Her hips bucked hard, grinding my mouth into her where I held on tightly. I felt her hands grasp for my hair as one buck followed another and then another. Through a ringing in my ears I could hear my gorgeous, wonderful friend gasping over and over ‘Oh, Allie!’ and that just made me twist my head and lick and suck all the harder.

With a trembling howl, Stephie’s every muscle seemed to contract at the same time and she lifted her hips – and my head – a foot or more off the bed. She held that position for several long, blissful seconds before collapsing back onto the covers, gasping for breath, small twitches and shivers running through her belly.

A few seconds later I felt her scrabbling at my shoulders, heard her repeat over and over ‘Come here!’ and let my friend drag me onto the bed and then twisted over so that I was where she had been moments before.

I tried to tell her that there was no need to return the pleasure right then, but I was wrong and she knew it. Her mouth was at my womanhood in a second and as her tongue pressed between my soaking wet lips I felt the orgasm start to rise. Within a couple of seconds I knew that there was no controlling it and when Stephie paused and told me to come for her it had started almost before her mouth was pressed once more against my very centre.

I climaxed harder than I had ever done before – and that is not an exaggeration. Wave after wave of pure joy washed over and through me, a tsunami of emotion and pure pleasure. Ripples were still running through me when I found myself face to face with Stephie once more.

We kissed, maybe a hundred times in a couple of minutes. A hundred words of thanks between each kiss.

We fell asleep in that most cloyingly romantic way, in each other’s arms.

*****

I’m back in Britain now, the holiday a perfect and not yet distant memory. I never saw Danny again on that last day although I did see Stephie naked in the daylight. And tasted her. I saw stars and a million new futures. I saw even, the problems that I – or hopefully, we – might face.

And here I am, a suitcase packed by my side once more. There’ll be no holiday this time, but I will be seeing my Stephie again. She’s not leaving Tim – I couldn’t ask that – or at least, she’s not leaving Tim yet, or I’m not asking yet. But there are a hundred hotels near where she lives and there are a million things that we need to discover about our new-found status as lovers.

And we do love each other, you know… the tear on my cheek tells me that is so, so true.