The Weir Gate Pt. 01

The old weir gate was stuck, again. The old one, made of hornbeam had been much better, but had fallen to pieces two years ago; this modern thing was awful. It had swollen with the rain, and needed a good kick to make it open; fortunately, I was in the mood for kicking, so I gave it a good boot – and it opened.

The trees were stark against the sky, denuded of their leaves, and as I walked, the late winter afternoon sun shone through the branches like tongues of fire, caught and reflected in the ripples of the tumid stream. Looking over to the far bank, I could see the scrub cattle, tiny figures in the distance. Beyond them, dark and squat on the hillock was the tower of the Church whence I had come. Across the tree line I saw one; no, two; no, three magpies. Three for a girl, the saying went. I giggled quietly. Some hope, I thought.

My temper had abated a little; but not much. As I strode down the ancient walkway, golden with the cast-off leaves of autumn, some now turning a slushy brown, but the more recent ones crisp with the frost that had not quite vanished, crunched under my boots. One of the plus points of living in an old house in the English countryside and going to a country church was that one was always dressed for a walk, even if, like this one, it was impromptu. I was still furious with my mother.

The walk, and the feel of the ancient landscape were having the effect I'd hoped, but although the rough edges of my anger may have been smoothed away, a little fire raged in my heart. It was all so unfair, I exclaimed, kicking a pile of leaves.

"What was?"

I turned round, puzzled. I'd heard no one walking behind me, but when I looked in the direction of the voice, I saw a canoeist who had moored just behind me.

"Sorry," I said, "didn't see you there."

"I just glided in, been free-floating for a while. The algae is so bad upstream that I could do with a period of not paddling. I'm Annie, and you are?"

"Me," I stuttered, "I'm Pixie."

"Suits you, I'm guessing it is to do with you being so petite?"

I giggled.

"Yes, don't let my boots fool you, I'm actually 4′ 10″, on a good day."

"Well, Pixie, you are well-dressed for this, even if wooly tights are not the sexiest object known to woman."

She was laughing, and that made me laugh.

"Well," I said, the Church was bloody cold, even with the so-called heating on, and I'd rather be warm than sexy – at least in Church, I added hastily and somewhat clumsily."

"You look cute enough as you are, I would not worry. Love the pig-tails, my fave."

I giggled, and blushed.

"Very kind, Annie," I stammered.

"You know us Aussies, tell it straight and damn the torpedoes."

I had picked up an Australian twang and thought it very nice.

"So, what was so unfair then, Pixie?"

As she asked, she got out onto the bank and sat on a log looking at me. Her hat concealed lovely blonde hair, and she had kind, baby-blue eyes and a smile which lit up the late afternoon for me. It was difficult to get a sense of her appearance underneath her parka and life-jacket, but I liked what I saw. So I decided to tell her. No harm telling this kind stranger whom I would never see again.

I sat next to her on the log.

"It'd be very tedious, are you sure you want to hear it?"

She gave me a swift peck on the cheek.

"Go for it, Pixie, the worst that can happen is I go to sleep, and you can wake me up and put me in my canoe. There's a second paddle for the back position, and I am not far from here in terms of base, back down by the hotel."

She made me laugh again.

So I explained.

As usual when I was back in Suffolk, I went to Church with my mother. I did not go to Communion, but I liked the afternoon Evensong with the old Prayer Book. I loved the Cranmerian language and revelled in its sonorous tones and its rich, layered allusiveness. If God existed, it was the sort of thing I'd expect him to like. I'd talked with the vicar at the end, as my mother had. Then it had happened.

"You'd have been welcome at the Eucharist you know, Pixie."

Karen was a sweetheart. Mother disapproved of what she called "Lady Vicars." Indeed, she disapproved almost as much as she had of Daddy's calling them "Vicars in knickers."

Karen!" She had said sharply, "you know she can't. She is in a state of mortal sin, and until she repents and finds herself a nice young man, she is barred from receiving communion."

"Well, Mrs. Hoffmann, there is room in the Anglican Church for a more nuanced position, you know."

Mother was having none of it.

"Karen, she thinks she is a lesbian, she has, I am afraid to say, been living with a woman. Thank God they have broken up, and now she can come to her senses, so do not, please, give her false hope. Orthodox teaching has always been a feature of this parish."

Mother had what Daddy used to call her "dragon lady" look on. No wonder Carol took flight to the next departing parishioner.

"There was no need for that, Mother," I said crossly. "I don't think I am a lesbian, I am one."

"Yes, dear of course you are. You'll be telling me you are a man next, one of those transwhatsit thingies. You don't want a willy do you, darling? If you do, I am sure we can find you a nice young man."

Oh my goodness I thought, that was so typical of Mother, and that descent into something a bit smutty just made me angrier.

"Mother, I know you live in the Victorian era, but could you spare me the innuendo?"

That escalated things.

Mother told me off for being rude, and I told her off for being uncaring.

"I care deeply for your soul, darling," she had protested, "and I can't bear to see you going to hell for your sins. Thank God that ghastly lesbian teacher of yours let you down."

That did it.

I am normally a calm and placid little thing, but that was the spark that set me off.

I pointed out that when my older sister had broken up with her long-term boyfriend it had been tea and sympathy and an invitation to stay at the cottage by the sea for a week, whereas when Milly left me, it had been "the bloody Halleluiah Chorus," and expressions of hope I would "come to my senses now."

"But darling it is a good thing, she corrupted you, before you went to Oxford you were a normal girl, a bit shy, and of course given your figure, not many boyfriends, but they will come now. You have a good job after all, not many girls get to be full professors at thirty-one. You are a good catch you know, darling."

At that I either had to explode, or tell Mother I was going for a walk; so, as I loved her, I went for the walk. That was so my mother. Amidst the compliments, there was the assumption that I was a sinful pervert who only needed to stop being a lesbian and all would be fine. God would love me once I stopped kissing women.

As I stormed off I was muttering.

"For fuck's sake, one woman, one bloody woman is all I have had."

Not like I am my fucking sister, the well-known town bike before getting lucky and marrying her rich banker with the perfect country house, who was in the process of giving her the two point four children expected by the statisticians."

"So," I concluded with Annie, "that was where I was at the start of this walk."

She smiled, looking straight at me:

"And where are you now?"

As she said that she pulled me to her and kissed me full on the lips.

I liked the feel of them. They were only the second pair of lips I had kissed like this. So nice did they feel that I stayed locked onto Annie for what seemed a long time. Our lips moved, her hands pulled my face to her, and I felt her tongue pressing against mine. My lips parted to let her in. It felt better than good. She smelt nice.

She pulled away.

"I'd say in mortal peril," I giggled in answer to her question of what suddenly seemed ages ago.

"I do hope so," Annie laughed, "but not on this wet grass with the sun going down. Want a lift back to the hotel?"

Her accent seemed more pronounced. I realised suddenly that she was as nervous as I was.

"Okay, I'll take the back position."

Annie giggled.

"I'll be the judge of that darling."

She kissed me, and giving me the spare life-jacket, handed me a paddle.

I loved canoeing, and we made good time.

What I had not told Annie was that the ancestral pile was just down the road from her hotel, and that Mother was expecting me back for dinner.

I liked looking at her back as we paddled. She was good, swift and economical with her movements, she had a good sculling action, I soon got into rhythm with her, and we made swift progress once we had got through the algae-infested water down river of the weir. We even reached the landing stage before the last rays of light vanished from the sky. The sunset was violent, the clouds seemed to swallow the flaming sphere, which gave off last shafts of illumination before being swallowed forever.

Annie was brisk as we disembarked, tying the canoe up and helping me out.

"I knew I'd get a look up that corduroy skirt, shame the tights are so bloody opaque. Fancy coming to my room to show me what I am missing?"

I looked at her, she looked at me, and we both broke out in giggles.

"I blame your mother," she said, "she got me all lesbianed up."

That made me laugh again. I liked Annie, she made me laugh a lot.

"Is that a word?" I asked.

"Well as it is a thing, there has to be a word for it and that's my word."

Her blue eyes held my hazel-brown ones.

"You are so cute," she said.

"Am I?" I said.

"Believe me, I'm Australian, and if I thought you were a dog, I'd tell you. Well, in fact I wouldn't have picked you up in the first place, little Pixie."

"I am glad you did, Annie," I said with a giggle and a blush.

"I'm due back at Mother's for dinner."

"Good, tell her you have met an old friend and would like her to come to dinner with you."

"But ..."

"Well by the time we get to your house, I will be an old friend, and I could so do with a decent meal," was Annie's rebuttal at my attempt to impose reason onto the situation,

"How far away are you?"

"See that big house on the corner? There."

"Oh my; well, I am about to bed the local Lord's daughter? Do I get put in jail for treason or something?"

"Well," I hesitated, "Mother is the Honourable Millicent and won't let you forget it. Let me give her a quick call."

I phoned as Annie collected her key and shepherded me upstairs, I waved hello to Greg, the night porter, who started early and went late.

"Ma, met an old friend from Australia, would you believe it? Is it okay if I invite her for dinner?"

Mother seemed relieved, glad I was okay, and was happy to have Annie join us.

"I suspect," I said, "that she will be grateful that I won't be continuing the argument."

I smiled, not quite believing I had just done what I had just done.

"Can I get you to do other things that easily, Pixie?"

There was a sexy undertone in Annie's voice, which I liked, but I did not want to seem "easy" to her.

"We have only just met, you flirt; do you think I am going to just fall into bed with you?"

"No," said Annie, "we won't get that far, I shall take you on the floor."

I bushed bright pink and blurted out:

"Well I knew you Aussie girls were, erm, plain-speaking, but ..."

"No time beating around the bush," she said, "speaking of which."

And at that she pulled me upstairs after her and along the corridor, stopping only to open her door and then, once we were inside, she pulled me to her.

The difference in our height meant that I was on tip-toe to reach her, but our lips were so desperate it did not matter. We fell in a heap of flailing arms and legs onto the bed, and then proceeded to see how fast it was possible to rid ourselves of our clothing. She giggled as we got caught in in her sweater, and I did as, somehow, my pigtails got caught in her bra. But we finally found ourselves naked on the bed, slipping our knickers off as we fingered each other. Her kisses were electric. I felt erotic vibrations shooting through me. My nipples were hard, and I was dripping wet. I wanted her

Annie wanted me as much, clawing at my cunt and sucking my nipples. I pulled her up, kissed her lips, told her she was fantastic, and then she went down on me. The girl from Down Under certainly knew what to do down under. Her tongue moved in so many delicious ways that I found myself gasping for breath. Her hands on my nipples seemed to be bringing me to the point of orgasm by that means alone. I lay back – something I had never done – and let her pleasure me. It took every ounce of will-power to slow my orgasm down, but this was too good to be quick. She played me like a Stradivarius.

But I wanted her too, and I pulled her up, kissed her, tasted me on her lips, and then, pushing her back, went down on her. Gosh, she tasted so good. Fuck, she made me so horny, I felt as though I had come alive, but somehow, more alive than ever. Her responses to my licking aroused me more, and when, accidentally, I touched her asshole and she moaned, I did it again deliberately, and she moaned louder.

She was having none of that, as she told me later, she wanted me to enjoy it too.

So we ended up in a 69, licking and sucking as though we had encountered oases in the desert, drinking our fill and anting more. Her scent filled my world. Her warmth, her smell, her soft skin, all had me on the edge, and that was without what she was doing to me – and we came, one long shuddering joint orgasm. We were one. We came.

As the long aftershocks died away, Annie looked at me, turning to be in my arms.

"What time were we due at your mother's? I feel I have eaten."

"Oh my," I giggled, "we have about fifteen minutes."

"Well, onto the next course," Annie giggled.