Life was good; I had fun with my children, I was reasonably secure financially, enjoyed my job at the school, and I suddenly had a far more interesting relaxation technique to 'deal with stress'.

I had a reasonable social life based around lots of friends, many of which I'd got custody of after the break up -- which again I think says as much about Parker as it does about me and my friends. It was through one of those friends that I got to hear of an event that was going to play the next important role in my sexual awakening.

Social networking, love it or hate, does seem to play such a huge part in putting and keeping people in touch these days. I was 'friends' with a load of school mates and it was through one of them, Elaine one of my real BFF's, that I heard about the passing of one of them from those times.

Caroline was in my class through primary school, secondary school, even college and a proper Tom-boy, and tall and dark haired like me, and as she got older she grew all the right bits in the right places -- but it was Caroline, you couldn't be jealous or dislike her for it because she was so nice.

To make it worse she played all the contact sports to county level, a champion swimmer, a cross country runner and was if that wasn't enough a brilliant guitar player into the bargain.

On the rare occasions she wore a dress, heels and make-up (it was normally sports clothing) she was fucking gorgeous and it wasn't just for its rarity value, when she stopped being 'sporty plain Jane' she was naturally stunning.

Fortunately for us normally pretty girls she hardly ever did, she wasn't a Lesbian or anything she just couldn't be bothered with all that kind of thing. Boys were OK but only when you were beating them in a cross-country run, out-jumping them high or long, or leaving them half a lane behind you in the swimming pool. Lucky for most of the boys at our school she wasn't allowed to play them at football, basketball or hockey because she'd have wiped the fucking floor with them at that too.

She was all about sport, and I still remember the day she came to school with her lovely dark lustrous hair, a thousand times nicer and more natural looking than mine, cut into a short manageable bob while she swam for England in a European championship, and it didn't grow back to her supermodel best for at least a year.

Caroline left school, and should have become a model,no question. But no, she went to the same college as me and studied sports sciences and joined the Royal Navy as a physical training instructor, a well-paid job with lots of travel that was based solely around the love of her life - sport.

After a very successful naval career involving Commonwealth Games medals in the triathlon, not forgetting the ones she had for service to her country in Afghanistan, she left and being a trained Aikido instructor she joined the county police force. I was a recent social media 'friend' with her and we were both on our school Facebook page and I had joined in conversations with her about the old days.

To my great sadness I saw that there was now a memorial page to her. She had been diagnosed with liver cancer that was too far gone to be treatable. They made her comfortable and being the Caroline we all remembered, she set out to raise money for cancer research with the time and energy she had left. Tragically she lost her fight the day she appeared on local TV. One of the things she had wanted do was a get together of the Schools Theatre Company.

The company was made up of individuals and groups from each school to mark the Tri-centenary of our city. Each school had to provide a few acts and some musicians for the orchestra. But after a few rehearsals it soon became evident that as a team we were much greater than the sum of our parts.

Our mixed school was just packed with people that could sing and dance and play instruments, one of them being Caroline of course. I sang in the choir and danced whenever the opportunity arrived. The school held auditions and of course we all ended up doing something.

The local Catholic school sent their entire orchestra and singers, the other big secondary in the town (our natural enemy) did the same as us, the Grammar school couldn't release anyone 'because of exams' and the all-boys Trade School - the school Parker was at - provided some top notch musicians and a rock band. The rock band soon became known as 'The Boyz' and were fantastic fun and played everything asked of them with fire, lustre and what the adult leader called 'cheek'; and everyone loved them for it. With the addition of more guitars, different musical styles, keyboard players and the 'brass section' rather than the 'brass band', the company was born.

The company was wonderful and all done after school or at weekends, and it was Caroline's last wish we got back together one last time for her charity, but she never got to see it.

We were originally bought together for one gig, but continued for almost two years. After that first gig it had ceased to be 'a concert party' that the city fathers had first ordered and pretty soon it was a long stream of musical numbers of varying types. The concert for the city was good and we played some classics, some old stuff for our grandparents and parents, then classic popular music and we got lots of applause and praise.

We then did two further 'school performances' so our classmates and the many parents not invited to the Tri-Centenary could see the gig. It was at that point that Miss White, the lady from the City Education Service that ran the thing, said that for the school performances we could play what music WE wanted.

So we dropped the wartime favourites, we dropped the crooner songs and the community singing, we even dropped the national anthem. We spent one day rehearsing the songs we loved and we heard on the radio and our CD players and we were ready.

That was it; with the Guildhall capable of holding two and a half thousand people per night from all four secondary schools (grammar school kids not invited), they opened the doors and a legend was born. 'The Boyz' wearing their black stage gear in honour of their trademark school uniforms would start off with 'The boys are back in town' by Thin Lizzy and everyone stood and didn't sit down for the rest of the evening. They played Status Quo's 'Caroline' and the gorgeous guitar player from our school would slowly walk on stage playing the riff. Piece by piece the company appeared.

Being tall and dark with a better than average singing voice and an ear for harmonies (my Mum is a choral singer and I'd grown up with it) I had been put together with Elaine from my school and Diane from the Catholic school and we did an 'Andrews Sisters' thing for the City gig and with some khaki dresses sang 'Boogie woogie bugle boy' and we just clicked.

After rehearsal and brilliant direction from Miss White we knew what each of us would do with our part of the harmony and we just did it. The dance mistress suggested that if we could dance as well as we sang it would be brilliant. Diane took care of that and we had a few evenings at her house watching videos of backing singers at various concerts and shows and we were away. I'm amazed we never wore a hole in her Mum's rug in front of the fire. As the company progressed we all sang solo's as well, and we hit the stage (normally with cheers and wolf-whistles) arriving about four songs in and staying to the end, singing our solo's as they came up.

We made school concert history, but not always for the best reasons. For instance we had a young American boy, the Super Cool Stevie Mac, for the second year and he asked if we could do a Beach Boys song. So we played 'Surfin' USA' which had us all standing side on and shifting our hips like we were on surf boards and at the end of each bar we'd jump and land the other way around like we'd seen on a Beach Boys video. The audience did the same BUT were stood on their seats; after the second night we were banned from ever playing it again. We of course did whenever we could.

Then the brass would enter and we played Madness songs which had everyone in the aisles dancing, then we put on our cheap looky-likey Ray Bann sunglasses and became the Blues Brothers. Then it was Beatles songs, whatever was in the charts finishing with several long encore rock songs; 'Hey Jude' as the sing-along, then 'Baby drives me crazy' that everyone sang and saw every single one of us in a line with an instrument of some kind (whether we could play it or not) head banging through the last chorus and a single bow to see us off stage before our inevitable encores. It was wonderful, and we did it for eighteen months.

A new Facebook page was started 'the Concert for Caroline' and appeared on my page as a suggestion. I 'liked' it and clicked 'Friend request' writing what I'd done in the original company and who I remembered clicking them as suggestions; I of course included Elaine, Diane and a load of other people that had been involved and I wasn't sure would have seen it. Not Parker mind you; anyways he was too miserable to be on Facebook.

Social media is made for something like this, and pretty soon the web was buzzing and every few hours someone new was on the page chatting with old friends. I made contact with at least two dozen people in the space of two evenings, and I seemed forever checking the page on my mobile at work. One of the gang Mark, (guitar player from The Boyz) had gone into education and was now a teacher at my old school and had got agreement for the school hall, the original home of the company, to be used for rehearsals at weekends on the understanding we chipped in fifty pence each for the electricity.

True to company history he made it for a Saturday, inviting everyone to come along with their guitars, their drum kits, their strings, brass, keyboards, harmonicas, triangles, whatever they had to hand.

It just happened to be a weekend that the kids were with Parker, so I didn't have to discuss anything with them. I put on a pair of my curvy jeans, one of my new cropped tops I'd bought to go with the wonder bras, straightened my cleavage and headed downstairs. I put on just a touch of make-up and some lippy, pulled loose some hair around my heart shaped face, sprayed on some perfume and that was me. I looked good and turned my stereo up bluetoothing a whole mess of songs from my phone that we used to sing back in the day, that I'd gotten from the net or my CD collection.

In the car park I found loads of flipchart paper notices on fences and bike sheds I vaguely recognised, obviously created by pupils from the school directing us to park on the long remembered large playground once the car park was full. I followed them as I headed towards the next space, seeing half remembered faces shaking hands and hugging all over the place and in the next available space I saw that Diane and Elaine were stood in it embracing. I wound down my window and leant out, "Oii bitches, move out the way unless you want to be run over..."

They looked, they screamed, I screamed. I stalled the car getting out, but dashed across to them anyway and we hugged, and cried and hugged some more. Even though I'd met them individually over the years, this was the first time we'd been all three together in all that time. Arm in arm we walked in, smelling that smell of dust, books, gymnasiums and one thousand teenagers all growing up, as we sang our familiar la-la-la 'doh-re-me' warm up that we'd been taught by Miss White all those years ago.

Once inside it was more of the same. Diane's nick name had been 'Deedee' and within seconds of being back in the room, so it became again.

There was any number of people I recognised and we shook hands, hugged, discussed waistlines, hairlines, weddings, children, divorces and of course considering our reason for being here, funerals. There were a couple of people with cameras -- Mark was to explain later that part of the plan was to make a video and see if that could be sold.

Mark was instantly recognisable from his Facebook picture and he'd done a great job and laid out the hall pretty much as we used to back in the old days. The sound system and speakers were half the size of the stuff we used in the old days of course but the hall looked much smaller for some reason though. There was that few minutes were we all looked around from our comfort zones to everyone else's comfort zones.

Stood next to Mark was a huge man with a black bass guitar. His hair was short but styled which it hadn't been all those years ago.

"Who is thaaat?" drawled Elaine seeing this big guy hefting an amplifier in one hand.

I looked, he'd changed considerably, and for the better I might add. "Elaine Darling," I said remembering that he was always at our end of the stage and the banter we had and the eyes he used to make at us, "I do believe that is Graham, d'ya reckon he still has a crush on you?"

"Fuck off Nats," said Elaine, "He had a crush on you sweetie and you know it," she purred fluffing her blonde hair, "still, might be worth finding out."

"Shit, he has grown into a big strong boy hasn't he," said Deedee.

Indeed he had; Graham the bass player had come from the wrong end of the town right enough and had been recommend to the Trade School as a bright kid in poor circumstances.

The Trade School was boys only and had been since its foundation in 1799 and drew most of its pupils from the rough end of the city as had been intended by its founding fathers to 'take boys off of those mean streets' and make them into tradesmen rather than ending up in prison, the scaffold or the grave'. It wasn't overtly religious but their school uniform was black which harked back to the semi-monastic gown Trade School boys wore up until the start of World War 2 when the shortage of dark cloth for black-outs saw them wearing short blazers with a triangle of material at the collar to represent the hood.

The school blazer badge was a rather masonic looking collection of tools and the words 'Per laborem ad iustitiam'.

Most believed and stated that this meant 'Through work to righteousness' but a late sixties Classics master told a journo from the local paper that it actually read 'Through labour to righteousness', and all through the seventies and eighties local Tory politicians tried to have almost two hundred years of history erased, re-embroidered and reprinted.

Parker, who was one of Mrs Thatcher's most ardent fans, still agreed but said that most of the prepubescent pupils just giggled and with Tippex and a black felt tip coloured in the letters to read 'a bore - a tit I am'. This normally got the squeaky voiced comedian sent home with a note telling parents that the child would not be welcome at school until the badge read what it should. The Tippex came out again and repairs made until a new badge could be bought.

Once back, the offender would normally find themselves with the standard 500 lines of Latin to copy out for that particular offence.

"Hoc est ridiculam, suus ridiculam et est non ridiculam eam nunquam esse. Ego sum primus et ego oro dominus sit ultimum," which apparently read, "It isn't funny, it's never been funny and it will never be funny. I'm not the first but I pray lord I may be last."

The Trade School was the last in the town to still teach that language, and most Trade School boys could quote some, especially those lines which were used for all kinds of punishments for all kinds of misdemeanors.

The school had still drawn from the poorer parts of town as laid down in the original charter and there were quite a few tough looking individuals, but places there were highly sought after because much as it was a bit rough and tough, the Trade School was selective and far from just creating carpenters, bricklayers and plumbers out of starving boys, thanks to an inspirational headmaster in the 70's and 80's the proportion of old boys that went to Oxbridge or into the professions was more than double the next best state school, more so even than the Grammar.

You had to be selected by the school, or 'called' as tradition had it, through a strange process of their own peculiar bunch of 'talent scouts'; vicars, policemen, a few primary school teachers, even fewer social workers and 'old boys', or have an older brother there, and they still to this day turn out engineers, scientists, architects and teachers. It was possible to apply for a small percentage of spaces for the two classes a year - if you passed something like the old '11 plus' exam you could get through to an interview and then in, which was how Parker had made his way in to such an auspicious establishment. It's pretty much the same these days although girls joined their ranks a few years back.

Trade School boys were cut from two sorts with hardly anything in between. Dubbed 'L' or 'T' -- meaning 'like' or 'tyke', the L's tended to be nice, friendly and clever, while the T's would be the complete opposite and range from slightly untrustworthy to out and out thugs. Parker was a 'T' that claimed he was an 'L'.

At first glance the short crew cut and huge size gave the impression that Graham or 'Gray' as everyone called him was classic Trade School 'tyke' material. The terrible thing was this was far from the truth.

For a fourteen year old from the council estate he was huge, six foot four already with a skin head haircut, an impressive beard or moustache depending on the mood he was in with trousers always just too short, and with white shirts over-worn and over-washed to a light grey and at first look you thought he'd beat you up and rob you, but once you chatted to him and he smiled at you, that totally changed. You would think his speech would all be slang, four letter words and dropped H's but he was very well spoken, and was gentle, sensitive, sweet and kind to a fault.

Today his hair was cut stylishly short and he was clean shaven, and his blue 'Superman' T-shirt showed the definition of his wide shoulders, his tight six-pack and chest. His arms bulged.

I was impressed and so were Deedee and Elaine,

"Will you look at the size of Graham," breathed Elaine, "do you think that's all him?"

"Reckon he still does door work and debt collection?" threw in Deedee, "He can doorstep me any time he wants, I'm sure I'd find a way to repay hi..."

She was cut short by a loud but syncopated boom-bang-crash from the drums. The Boyz drummer for was Chris Wild, or 'Marty' as he was dubbed. There had been another drummer but we all found out to our joint sadness that Rob Peters who was the other (not the second -- the Boyz were democratic) drummer had been killed in an industrial accident some years back. His younger sister Maddie was among the string section and gave us the sad news of his passing but also the good news that she was married to Marty.

Marty had followed the other stream of Trade School boys and had trained to become a carpenter, but tiring of fitting flat packed kitchens and preparing shuttering on building sites he'd gone to evening classes ostensibly to learn furniture design and construction, but did so well and made such an impact locally that his work was highly individual and highly sought after; the Mayors Parlour in Guildhall has several of his pieces in it. Fitting because by tradition the Lord Mayor is automatically the Chairman of the Board of Governors for the Trade School, something even the Grammar doesn't have.

Marty had fared well and had a few grey hairs but looked as good as he ever did.

"Right guys," came a voice from the side of the hall and interrupting all of the chatter and Deedee's dirty thoughts and our giggles. It was Tom Crawford, or Major Tom as we called him back in the day.

Called to the Trade school because his father was an old boy, today they'd have called him a nerd, but he was a naturally gifted pianist and guitar player being a classic Trade School 'Like', having the organisational skills born of being the serious, studious, crew-cut wearing Army officer's son he had been. Nerd no longer though. He had long dark hair, a silver earing and T-shirt unbuttoned to show a crop of dark chest hair with fashionable glasses; another improvement. According to his FB profile he was now something in the defence industry, a world traveller and married with children.
"Let's start to jam some songs shall we? There's enough of us that still play to get things going," he strummed his guitar, the same Fender Stratocaster he'd used all those years ago. He started a simple slow twelve bar blues, "In E guys!" he shouted over the sound of his amp.

He was soon joined by a slow patter from Marty, adding to the atmos. Then there was a familiar bad tempered modulated thump from Gray the bass player and 'The Boyz' started to pull it together.

Gray stood up from where he'd been sat on his amp and walked to one of the mikes,

"Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself... Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself... You say I'm spendin' my money on other women, While you're getting' your money from someone else..."

It was a great slow start and Tom came in with some lead breaks, and before I knew it Elaine, Deedee and I were stood up around our two mikes and moving to the rhythm in complete syncopation just as we had all those years ago, only we were now more woman with more interesting moves. We giggled and laughed and in Deedee's words, 'shook what our Mothers' gave us'.

Tom looked across to us and gave a thumbs up; he leaned across to Gray and the tone and pace changed, the bass slid into a well-known riff, albeit one we never sang in the old days, and Tom sang the first line of the chorus and we responded in time, tone and pitch perfect, as if those years were days.

"All you wanna do it ride around Sally,"

"RIDE SALLY RI-IDE!"

And away we went with Tom reaching up to the rafters with "One o'these lonely mornin's... you gonna be... wipin' those weepin eeeeyees!"

It was fantastic and we all got back into the buzz of making music with other people again.

We did some of our favourites from the time, with the promise we'd be joined after lunch by some of the guys from the brass and string sections who'd been in another room.

"Darlings!" came a voice. We all smiled, it was going to get much better.

We all stared up on the main stage and at the keyboards. Stood behind the thing was everyone's favourite band member, another Trade School boy Colin Raymond, or as he was known 'Ray' and latterly as his sexuality became apparent 'Gay Ray'. Like the other guys Ray had improved with age and he stood behind his beloved keyboard and raised his hands.

"Hello darlings!" he called from his podium that his old mate Mark had put him on, "Girlies!" he shouted in delight, adding, "and the gorgeous Deedee! Looking hotter than ever sweetie." Diane was the only girl we ever knew that had made out with Ray; it hadn't got past the snogging at the back of the stage point, but she was the one and the only. He grinned and looked across the stage, "And there, who would believe it, the coffee making expert himself, Gray-ham!"

"Raymondo," Gray called to him, "about bloody time you old queen."

"Gray-ham, you tease, some of us work for a living big boy," Ray beamed, and then played some tinkling intro's on the piano and, as Mark has set him up a microphone as well, he started to sing,

"It's a God awful small affair, for the girl with the mousy hair..." and before we knew it we were all singing about sailors fighting in the dance hall, and looking them at cavemen go. It was great.

We stopped for another break and Tom started to write songs on the white board. We all threw in the songs we'd liked doing, or fancied doing now.

'Caroline' had to be first, and Mark said that he'd arranged for Caroline's eight year old son to be involved. Parents all, there was a long 'awwwwwwwww' at that announcement. Next was 'the boys are back in town', some Beach Boys, 'one step beyond' and 'Baggy trousers' of course. We were from the south of England technically 'south' we supposed so 'Sweet home Alabama' was the nearest we got to country music, and AC/DC, 'you shook me all night long' -- another song we were banned from playing all those years ago. We started shouting songs across the room, part serious part humorous, but now of course we had the music that had happened since we stopped playing and 'sex on fire' made the list, as did 'Don't look back in anger'.

"Oi Ray!" shouted Gray, "we so nearly forgot mate!"

He started a thumping rhythm that was instantly recognisable as soon as Ray joined in on the keyboard as the intro to 'Waterloo' by Abba and Elaine and I stepped and shouted, as we had all those years before,

"My My! At Waterloo Napoleon did surrender..."

We were still 'long blonde' and 'shoulder length brunette' with nice bums, and we both did the dance we stole from watching the original Eurovision performance on video all those years ago, but our voices had changed a bit so Ray and Tom worked out a different key and Abba joined the play list.

We tried a few more before settling on 'Waterloo', 'Gimme Gimme Gimme' and either 'Does your mother know' or 'Super Trooper' before 'thank you for the music'. We took a break for coffee and we chatted about what to sing next. It had been so brilliant so far.

Gray looked across the hall straight at me, "Let's have some Fleetwood Mac," he said, "hang on, how's this..."

With that he played the long drawn out music best remembered as the theme to 'Formula one' on the BBC, the mid-section of Fleetwood Mac's the Chain. Before we knew it the guys were playing along.

"Come on Nats," he said using my old nickname, "you'll piss it!" His smile was infectious. I stepped up to the mike and closed my eyes; the words came back to me without even thinking...

"Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise, Running in the shadow, damn your love, damn your lies, And if you don't love me now, you will never love me again I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain..."

When it got to the bass solo Gray came forward, as he had all those years before. He had a huge grin on his face and his fingers flew up and down the neck of his shiny black guitar. At last Tom and his squealy guitar joined in and we were drummed to the crescendo,

"RUNNIN' IN THE SHADOWS!!"

The girls and guys harmonised,

"Chaaaaains keep us together..."

As the rock took us Gray and I were face to face again, as if the last twenty two years had never happened. He mouthed the words to me as I sang them, even though I knew them by heart despite not having sung them in that long.

The music slowed and the band gradually stopped playing leaving me the final line, "Ruuuuunnin' in the shaadooooooooowsssssss..."

The cameraman held the camera on me and I stopped red faced. "Shit," said Tom forgetting the camera, "That song is IN!!"

We did a few more songs; my solo had suggested that Deedee and Elaine do the same. Deedee sang her best one, Bruce Springsteen's 'Because the night' the way Patti Smith had done it. But in the intervening years, her voice had mellowed and matured, added to this was her dynamite figure, her bottom half wrapped in denim, her top shaped and cleavage by a stringy halter top. She positively growled into her microphone like Patti, then belted out far more melodiously depending on what the line was saying. She looked really sexy.

"Take me now baby here as I am, Pull me close try and understand Desire is hunger is the fire I breathe, love is the banquet on which we feed"

We joined in where necessary and ran through a couple of times for the boys to get the music in their heads.

"Because the night belongs to lovers, because the night belongs to us..."

It was great, and joined 'the chain' on the whiteboard.

Elaine sang her rendition of 'Will you' by Hazel O'Connor, and she was pitch perfect, just enough to bring us down from the last two rock and raunch numbers, and allowed the brass players to stretch their lungs a bit.

While we were stopped for coffee, Tom and Ray were playing around with sounds on the piano, when Ray shouted a quite effeminate 'Ooooooooh yes' and played an intro we all knew.

"Each morning I get up I cry a little, can barely stand on my feet,"

We girls come in next

"Take a look at yourself,"

Ray beamed across at us, "I look in the mirror and I cry lord what you doin' to meeee, I get down on my knees and begin to pray, til the tears they run down from my eyes, Oh somebody (somebody) somebody (somebody) Can anybody find meeeee, somebody to love."

We were all pretty speechless after that one and we all knew the gig was going to be fucking good.

The coffee machine had been filled up and as we all partook, Deedee walked over to the muscular bass player and laid an arm on his.

Diane had become a late teenage party animal that once freed of her Catholic school upbringing became a heavy metal/Goth chic and drank too much and smoked some strange things. Through economic necessity she changed her job and was no longer hanging around with her death metal mates and met a really nice guy that worked at the same place. They lived together for a while and got married after a few years together. All was well until she fell in with her old group of mates initially for a one off get together that became every Friday.

After a few pissed up, extra-marital dalliances, the last of which had her and an anonymous partner in court for indecency, her husband divorced her.

She slipped off of our radar and into a bit of a downward spiral and during one of her drunken shags she fell pregnant. She couldn't remember the man's name but later confessed it was the best thing to happen to her and she stopped drinking, and became an almost model single mum to her daughter, named Natalie Elaine 'after the two nicest girls I ever knew'; sober she may now have been but she still had a look in her eye that said she would throw the big man to the floor and fuck his brains out given half a chance and a sniff of the barmaids apron.

"Gray-Gray?" she purred, "Seeing as you're all here, I suppose 'The Boyz' will be doing Duran Duran won't you?" They used to play a funk rock version of 'Girls on film' and ALL the girls, whichever school we were from, would scream our way through it!

"We're not all here though Dee," he said grinning down into her face, "Parks is missing."

Fuck; Parker hadn't been one of 'The Boyz' as such, and he was nowhere near as good musically as the other guys but looked sexy (to us fifteen and sixteen year olds). Parker would sing the Simon Le Bon part extremely well; his impression of Suggs, the lead singer of Madness, was also uncanny and along with our brass section and one of his mates on vocals we did many of their songs too.

Deedee looked across at me; she'd been a Bridesmaid at our wedding and had noticed I wasn't wearing a ring and had asked about it.

"Sorry Darling," she said to me, "forgot."

Just in time the school caretaker appeared and said that we needed to start packing away, as he needed to lock up for five. We did that loaded the various pieces of equipment into cars and cupboards as necessary. Graham was driving a Land Rover Discovery!

Deedee, Elaine and I swapped glances, especially when he lifted huge amplifiers and speakers like he had in the old days, not seeming to break into a sweat or anything.

Finally Elaine could take it no more, "So are you still in the security business Gray?" she grinned, "Working out like that I guess you wouldn't have trouble getting money from people!"

"Oh, don't hang around doors any longer Elaine, honest. Don't even own a Crombie anymore." The full length black wool Crombie coat was, and probably still is, the winter must-have for doormen in the UK. He pushed the large under-stage doors closed with his legs. "I must confess I do recover people's money on odd occasions, it does involve court orders but it doesn't have me door-stepping people any longer that's for sure."

From the stage where he sat talking proper music with Tom, Ray shouted, "Don't listen girlies, he makes coffee for people, nowhere classy like Starbucks or Café Nero or Costa, but he gets around."

We laughed, Gray looked up at Ray with a smirk, "one day Raymondo, you'll be pleased I 'make coffee'."

Most of us were parents with families that needed feeding, so most headed off. For me, I was able to stand nattering with the few left.

I saw that Gray was chatting with Ray again, and Tom and Mark were joining in with the laughter. I just felt drawn to them, to one with the sweetest smile and the fittest body...

"You boys just don't change do you!" I said moving close to them, putting my arms through Graham's and Ray's.

"What you don't know honey is we get together four of five times a year," said Ray.

"Really?" I said.

"Yes," said Gray, "We've been pub gigging every year since we left school."

"I thought so," I said squeezing both of their arms and leaning against Gray, "You guys sounded too good to have just started jamming all of a sudden."

"We always sound good darling, I mean just look at us, we're gorgeous."

I leaned over and kissed his cheek, "Always said you were, Ray-Ray."

Mark laughed, until a fortnight Saturday fella's?"

"No worries Mark," said Gray, "You want dropping off Tom?"

"No thanks mate, Kay is shopping in town, meeting her in Costa in fifteen minutes."

"Costa?" grinned Ray, "you can get him some with employee discount Gray-ham."

"Yeeeeeees Ray," sighed Graham with a grin, "and I suppose you want me to buy you a skinny latte so you don't get fat don't you, you bent bastard."

"Gray-ham, you romantic old fool you. OK, seeing as you're offering, coming darling?" he squeezed my arm.

I looked at Ray and Graham, and then Tom, I had nothing else to do after all. "Seeing as it's you honey," I said. We arranged to all head over there so Mark could lock the school gates. Tom went with Gray while Ray came in my car and we chatted about what we were doing now.

Ray had gotten into The Trade School through a similar process as his best mate Graham and he left it with lots of qualifications aged eighteen apparently with no desire to do anything but play his piano.

He drove his mother mad but with nothing more than a large brandy glass for tips on his piano he had a dozen hotels, bars and restaurants that he could drop into when he liked, happy that he'd be fed, given drinks and could walk away with never less than £100 for his trouble, and that was for each gig, afternoon, evening or night.

After two years of this and a significant lump sum in the bank, he upped and moved to Bournemouth, reappearing three years later with a degree in Paramedic Science and could now be seen dashing across town in a yellow BMW estate car or Motorbike with blue lights and sirens going on his way to save lives.

We had both tried to settle down; he had no one long term in his life, while I explained about Parker getting older not wiser or nicer, and Ray asked how he could possibly have become more obnoxious that he was before. I laughed; Parker had tried to bully Ray a bit but was never successful because Ray was so quick and clever - besides which, Graham was his best mate and built like a brick shit house and wouldn't have anyone bad mouth or threaten his mates, any of them.

As 'matter of factly' as I could I asked about Graham and what had happened in his life. "He was married, but then they separated and then she died a while back, very sad," he looked at me with a huge grin, "Yes Darling Natalia, he's single if that's what you want to know!"

I blushed and made to bash him with my spare hand.

We parked, paid and displayed in the car park and walked into town, and we walked to the coffee shop arm in arm and we both remarked that it was just like the old days, a few of us heading into town after a practice session. Twenty years ago it was to McDonald's, this time it was for coffee and cakes. We didn't know what a latte was in those days or a cappuccino for that matter but today we did and a merry bunch we were, and Graham (true to what Ray had said) did indeed go up to the counter and get our order. The coffees were excellent, improved only by the cake and the company.

We chatted about the songs we wanted to sing and play, songs we'd sung and played in the old days and swapped memories of good shows, good music and great times.

Tom's wife appeared with two young children, and I was pleased to see it was another old friend from our school days and we chatted about the show.

"I'll be there," said his wife Katie with a beaming grin; like her husband she had gone through a similar transformation and the dumpy, curly-haired, spotty, bespectacled girl had become a curvy, ravishing yummy-mummy, with an arm lovingly around her husband, "I was hoping to come this afternoon but our babysitter let us down at the last minute."

Katie was a saxophone player, by far the best one in the band. Both she and Tom had been 'quite quiet' and I asked how they ended up together.

"What?" she said incredulously, "Tom? Quiet?"

Little did we know it, but they had been an item since year nine ostensibly as homework buddies which then moved on to a first date when most of us were still talking about first dates. She would later confess to me that they lost their virginity to each other after one of our final gigs after the exams and sixteenth birthdays, at least a year or more before most of us 'popular' kids did! They married once they'd finished University but had struggled to have children, their twins courtesy of in vitro fertilisation.

We finished our coffee and said our goodbyes, Graham asked Ray if he would be seeing Terry this week and Ray said he was. I could only guess that Terry was some mutual friend they both knew. It went quiet for a moment.

"For Christ's sake Gray-ham," said Ray, "Are you going to ask this gorgeous woman out on a date or what? She is a single girlie and making it extreeeeeeeemely obvious that she's a little bit into you, while you haven't been able to take your eyes off of her all day; so pull your finger out you straight knobber." He sighed as if this was the most important thing in his life.

"Thank you, you gay tosser," growled Graham; I wasn't sure how this was going to go down. Ray beamed, as if he lived for this kind of mischief, "Go visit the bro' you gay frickin' hooligan," beamed Graham back at him. Ray kissed my cheek, patted Graham on his vast shoulder, nodded towards me then skipped off, content that he created enough mayhem for one day leaving just Graham and I in the car park and our parking tickets running out of time as we stood there.

"He's quite right you know," said Graham looking a bit embarrassed, "I would very much like to take you out to dinner -- if you've nothing else on," he stopped, "and no one else you'd rather go with of course?"

"Why Graham," I said sounding way calmer than I felt, "I'd love to." I told him of my childcare issues, and he said he had similar.

"I'm sorry to hear about you breaking up with Parks," he said, "he was..."

"Yeah," I said with a smile, "he was; but it was a long time ago."

"Sorry to hear of your... loss Gray."

"Yeah, shit happens doesn't it!" he grinned

We agreed that we'd go out to dinner on the Saturday night after our next rehearsal. I asked what his preference was and what I should wear.

"I'll book a nice restaurant in the country," he said, "it's been a long time since I've taken a beautiful woman out to dinner, shall we go posh?"

I giggled, I didn't actually mean to, it just sort of slipped out in a teenage nervous throwback.

"Please," I said, already thinking of what to wear, and instantly of how hot I was going to look in my little black dress with my new undies. He gave me his mobile number and email address and said he'd 'friend' me on Facebook. "Would you like to meet for lunch one day this week?" I asked.

"Can't this week," he said looking really disappointed into the bargain which made me realise this wasn't an excuse not to see me, "working in London, might have a day to spare the week after. I'll text you." He grinned. We finished with what was meant to be one of those kisses where you touch cheeks, but for some reason our lips met and it was really nice.
"You've got a date!?!" Gemma almost shouted, then remembered her darling younger brother was in the house, "you got a date..." she whispered, her face full of glee, "who with?" She picked up her tea and sipped it.

"He's a guy I knew back through the School Theatre Project, called Graham." I said, and added (as if it might make any difference at all) "he's the bass player."

"What's he like?" she grinned excitedly over her mug.

"He's very tall," I said, "Very muscular, very good looking," I couldn't hide my grin.

"Good for you!" she squealed.

"What's good for her," said Bradley appearing at the kitchen door.

"Mum's band practice is going really well, and she's got a couple of solo's."

"Ooooohkay," he breathed as if everything I did had to pass his strict code of moral ethics.

Gemma folded her arms, and surreptitiously pointed up the stairs, wagging three fingers.

I closed the dishwasher and went upstairs. Gemma had rapidly become a friend I could talk too. Since her father had moved out and the tension in the house had disappeared and she felt she didn't need to look after me anymore, we'd moved even closer.

I pushed open her bedroom door 3 minutes later and her stereo was already playing, I sat on her bed and she turned up the music just a tad louder moving the player between us and the door.

"So when is it?" she mouthed.

"Next Saturday week; when you're off with your Dad."

"Do you need a hand with your make-up or anything?" she beamed, "I've no problem not being at Dad's, Stephanie is really starting to piss me off; when will the bitch get it that I actually don't want her to be my friend?" Shauna had only lasted a few months as the sex became less interesting and she wanted more from him. Stephanie was the new girl he'd met through the internet and I thought looked a lot like me.

I chuckled. "No darling," I shook my head, "Thank you but, I've got it all sorted." What I really wanted was a few hours on my own where I could sort out my clothes, choose make-up, perhaps have my hair done, and then leave the house without any kind of innuendo from my children or interruptions from their father.

"Oh come on Mum, I don't mind... when was the last time you..." she mouthed the words 'went out on a date.'

I flashed ten fingers then five to indicate the last time I'd really made an effort.

"Then let me hel..." she stopped talking, and looked at her bedroom door, her shoulders sagging. She stood and stepped closer to the door talking slightly louder, "help you with the changes in your body for your age," she was speaking quite loudly, "it's perfectly normal for a woman's body to release the fluids it doesn't want anymore. The chemist can supply all of the things you could possibly need." I looked at her quizzically and she looked back, her face drawn into an expression of disgust. In a second she'd flipped her door open to show Bradley on one knee crouched at the crack of her door.

In a panicked realisation he made out he was doing something to his shoes, only to realise they were his trainers that were held closed with Velcro.

"GET AWAY FROM MY DOOR YOUR FUCKING PERV!" she screamed at him, "Mum he's bloody doing it again, creeping around like he's some kind of undercover fucking agent!"

"Bradley!" I shouted at him with some anger tinged with disappointment that had been brewing for some months, "your room NOW!"

He turned into his father, arms out outstretched and face pleading innocence. "What have I done?!" he whined, "I JUST happened to be knelt down by Gemma's damned door..." he pointed back over his shoulder at Gem's door just as his father would have done, "and now I'm getting the damned blame for EVERYTHING." He'd started to cultivate the use the term 'damned' as well and I hated its pretention, just like his dad.

I picked up his laptop, his tablet and his smartphone. "Don't lie to me Bradley," I said, "you sneak around like you're the secret police, and I know you report everything back to your father. It's like living in bloody Nazi Germany," I snarled under my breath.

"What you doing with my stuff?" he demanded, ignoring the fact I knew what he'd been up to.

"Confiscating it," I said, "when you've earned the right to have it back you can."

"They're from Dad," he said "you can't take them."

"Watch me."

"GIVE THEM BACK," he snarled, just like his father, and he tried to go face to face with me. I was a foot taller than him.

"No," I whispered into his face, "and if you're going to try and threaten me like your Dad used to, put on a few pounds or pay the fucking bills!" I slammed his bedroom door shut, almost in his face.

It was the first time I'd ever sworn at any of my children in that manner but Bradley had so had it coming.

That night Gem and I exchanged text messages about my night out and she said what I had been thinking, about clothes, hair, make-up and all those sorts of things. It was quite exciting for all that.

It was decided that I should wear my little black dress, with my matching heels. Gem also said that under that dress I'd look fantastic with my Wonderbra and that I absolutely had to wear the matching tiny string knickers that wouldn't show a line. I gasped in shock that she thought I'd need to wear underwear that matched. After I stopped blushing, I had to agree.

I was on tenterhooks for days, and made sure that I had everything ready for my date. I had several packs of contraceptive pills still in my bedside table. They were still in date, and did a quick google check and that assured me they'd still be effective. I'd buy some condoms just in case. Here I was making plans to sleep with a man I'd spoken to once in twenty years, but I felt really sexy and I played with all sorts of ideas for make-up, what to do with my hair; shit, I even started doing sit ups to make sure my belly looked flat enough in my dress!

I thought about all of the effort and it was obvious. Gray, the tall, muscular, kind, funny gentle man. He was the 'real man' that my subconscious had pined for, and he was interested in me as well. I knew that I was going to be 'all woman' for this 'real man'.

That was the longest fortnight in history and seemed to take a month for that equally long Saturday to arrive and when it finally did, it didn't seem to end. It was the second rehearsal and we'd all been in email discussion and the net had been hot with music, chords, lyrics and the occasional 'can we try...' followed with thirty or forty reasons why we should or shouldn't.

Gray was looking extremely hot in a fitted T-shirt and was playing his guitar just as well if not better that a fortnight ago. I smiled at him occasionally, trying hard not to telegraph to the rest of the band that we were going out that night and Gray, or Ray for that matter, didn't so much as mention it.

We played most of the songs on the list, stopping occasionally to check a note or a chord, or a modulation, whether we were singing the right verse in the right order. It was great; we jammed some more, improvised some stuff just for a laugh, happy that Tom would drag us back to some kind of order if it wasn't taking us where we wanted to go.

He bossed everyone around, except for his Katie of course. Today, we'd tried some Beatles songs, all of the classics including a version of Sergeant Pepper that we'd seen on 'YouTube' from 'Live8' a few years back. We paid more attention to Madness songs and the cry went up for Parker again. In his defence, he'd had the voice, the look and the moves, at least he always had done.

The room went quiet for a moment and people seemed to not be looking at me in a looking kind of way.

"Yeah but he's such a knob isn't he..." said Ray with a tone.

The tension was broken with much laughter and I could see everyone was desperate for me to say, "I'll ask him."

Tom, who had rapidly taken up the role of band leader as he had in the old days, smiled and said that we should get everything else down first then when we were ready we could call in the other soloists. Pressure removed.

"Let's give it a couple of weeks and I'll ask him," I said. No way was I laying that kind of task on myself while I was starting to get butterflies about my first date in years with the hot man not ten feet away from me.

We stopped for lunch, and I sat with Deedee and Elaine eating sandwiches and drinking from the large coffee percolator that Mark had nicked from the staff room again although this time, and I'm sure as some kind of private joke between him and Ray, Gray had bought some quite fantastic ground coffee for it.

The afternoon was equally fruitful and again just as we seemed to be getting into it for a second time, the caretaker was calling a halt to things. As I passed Gray on the way to the car park, he whispered "seven o'clock?"

I smiled and nodded, "See you then," I felt my cheeks burning and dashed away before any of our mates saw us together.

Once packed away, I stood with the same clutch of people as a fortnight before only this time, while I wouldn't have objected to another coffee, I wanted to get home and start the process of getting ready to go out for my first real date night in fifteen years. We all seemed to make our apologies for not going for a coffee and I dashed straight to the hairdressers and had my dark hair styled, (and a touch of colour on the few grey roots that stood out) and I even asked that they do my make-up seeing as I was early.

I looked good. Something the artist had done, made my lips look really pouty. They were full at the best of times so I asked the girl what her secret was just in case I smudged it. She smiled. "OK," she grinned, "looking like you're looking, it's going to get smudged." She showed me the secret that was actually done with two different shades of lipstick. I promised I'd try, but only if he let me.

I got home still with an hour to spare and put on my undies, pulling on my towelling robe as there was another forty five minutes until Gray would arrive.

Gray appeared at my door at two minutes before seven in an extremely sharp looking suit and I was so pleased that I'd made a similar effort. I opened the front door and he stepped back and looked me up and down. "Wow Nats!"

"Not looking so bad yourself Gray," I stroked a hand down his arm in delight and felt the hard muscle flex beneath the excellent cloth. It did little to settle the butterflies I'd had in my stomach since the Friday night before.

He took my hand and walked me down my drive to a low slung dark green sports car, and 'Top Gear' viewer that I was even I knew it was an Aston Martin. He held the passenger door open and I slid in onto the leather seats, seeing the luxury of thing, my car was nice but this! Jeez it was posh!

"Weekday car," he said with a grin, noticing how impressed I was at the walnut interior and the polished leather, "The Disco is for weekends and playing around."

"I've got an 'all week' car Gray," I said looking around me in appreciation, then adopted an over-blown 'I don't care' attitude I'd seen in Parker so often, "not that different from mine," I said, "four wheels, engine; virtually the same." Gray laughed and flipped the flappy paddle gears (Thanks again Top Gear!) up one and the engine purred, "mind you, it doesn't sound like that though."

"I'll let you have a go one day," said Gray.

"Yeah whatever..." I said, then couldn't keep up the pretext any longer and giggled. I sat back a bit and nervously pulled down the hem of my skirt that had risen exposing almost all of my thighs. Gray looked down, and I hoped he was impressed with the view.

We drove out of town and into the country, and we stopped at a great hotel I'd been driving past for many years.

The Hermitage was a five star restaurant with a hotel attached. I'd seen TV documentaries filmed here but I never done anything more than stop in the car park once -- just to look of course.

"Wow Gray!" I said, "this looks lovely, are you sure?"

"Oh yeah," he looked sideways at me, "we're only parking here, then getting the bus to Burger King, don't be impressed."

I laughed, but I desperately hoped that we weren't!

He stepped around and took my hand as I made to get out of his car, remembering to put both legs out so I didn't make a display of panties as I stood. He kept hold of my hand as we climbed the white stone staircase, with me taking in the grandeur of this former country seat now a high class restaurant.

"Bus stop is just through here," he said smiling at me. His teeth looked fantastic and his blue eyes glinted. He spoke to the Maitre'D.

"Woods, table for two."

Awwwww!

"Oh yes Mr Woods, how nice to see you again, I trust you are still well. How is your..." the Maitre thought hard then came to the answer, "Your brother, still well I trust?"

"Extremely well, thank you." He beamed, the same way he always did when anyone talked about his brother.

We were shown to a table in the bay window with a view out over the park and the lake in the background. At the tree line of the woods I could just see the occasional deer popping out onto the grass and shooting back in again. It was enchanting, and I pointed them out to Gray.

"Do you like them Nats," he said, "because I happen to know they serve a fantastic venison here."

I lashed out at him with a giggle, and he quickly disappeared behind a huge menu. The waiter saw me staring wide-eyed at the amazing choice, and offered some more detail on the variety of food on offer that evening. He was trying to help but all of the wonderful things just made my mouth water.

I have to admit, and with some devilment and making eyes at Gray I asked for the venison -- baked in hay with roasted vegetables with the most fantastic gravy; it was to die for. Before that I had about three different starters and appetisers, wine, all of which was finished by the most wonderful sweet yet tart layered meringue with tonnes of whipped cream, fresh fruits and a sweet, sharp lime sauce.

I thought about the discussion Deedee, Elaine and I had two weeks before. "So come on Gray, truth time," I sipped some of the excellent wine to bolster my confidence, "Elaine reckons you had a crush on me, I reckon you had a crush on her. Who was right?" I giggled, "I bet it was Deedee wasn't it!?"

Gray smiled, then turned his smiling face to me, "Always you Nats," he said, "always you. I was terrified of Diane, still am a bit!"

I laughed at his quip about Deedee, but was still pleasantly surprised, "Oh come on Gray, the gorgeous blonde Elaine, and you fancied me?"

"Oh yes," he said leaning slightly forward, "Don't get me wrong, Elaine was... no IS gorgeous but... I've never been out with a blonde you see, not once. Always brunettes," he grinned at me again and looked down thoughtfully for a moment breaking eye contact, "only brunettes, I think it was because the only Disney videos we had at home were 'Snow White' and 'Beauty and the Beast'. You were really nice and friendly, and I never had the nerve to ask you out, you were way too attractive to go out with a thug like me. And my mum would have been bloody awful about me going out with a girl and spending money when I could have been out earning it."

As we sat watching the last rays of the sun go down, we sipped our coffee. "What do you really do, Ray said something about coffee?" I sipped some of mine.

"Private joke," he said, "Ray is a good friend of my brother Terry and it's a joke they share."

"I don't think I ever met him," I said, "was he at your school?"

"No," he said, "he has cerebral palsy; mum never let him out of the house. Ray was one of the few kids Mum let in because we'd known him and his family since I was born." He sipped his coffee, "well he still visits him at his place. He jokes with Terry that I'm a Barista."

"And?"

"I'm a not a 'barista'" he grinned, "it's just how my brother pronounces it, actually I'm a barrister..."

I gulped in surprise, and put my coffee cup down with an embarrassed clatter. "Oh..." I said, "I thought..." he grinned that wonderful smile at me, "but Gray, this body, you look like a cross between a movie star and a Rugby player!"

"OK," he said flexing his bicep under his suit, "I'm a barrister that works out occasionally," He indicated the waiter, "some more coffee please," he said, "OK Natalie, what point in my life do you remember up to?"

It was basically when we had all left school, through college and started work, in our late teens and going out on a Friday and Saturday. We met lots of familiar faces of course and kind of hung out in the same pubs and clubs and rather than being with us drinking and partying Gray would be on the pub doors, working behind bars, once even driving a taxi. Parker's estate agency had used the security company he worked for to remove squatters and defaulted tenants during the week and for all we knew, especially through Parker's rather lengthy diatribes, he had left school with no qualifications and was now basically a paid thug. Graham took over the story.

His brother Terry was severely disabled from birth with cerebral palsy and his father had walked away from him, his rather emotional wife and his family responsibilities. His Mum Mavis had taken it very badly and decided that as his father's son Graham must be at fault as well and had to become a carer too - as soon as he was able to understand whatever command his permanently angry mother threw in his direction. He admitted he could change his brother's nappies by his fourth birthday.

He went to school because the law said he had to, or looked after his brother -- that was it, nothing else; he could do homework if it fitted around his care for Terry, he could go on school trips so long as it wasn't overnight. He couldn't go out with friends, he certainly couldn't bring them back to his house, so no cinema trips, evenings out, hanging out with mates and of course no girlfriends; nothing. She would shout at Gray and berate him if he ever slipped into the parlance of the estate he lived on, demanding the Queen's English from him. Fortunately by the time he hit puberty in Year 9 he was too big to be bullied by his neighbours and school friends for sounding posh and 'up himself' at school or in the shops. After all, those were the only places he was allowed to go.

They were given an old video player by a friend of the family as something for Terry to watch and Gray used to borrow films to watch from the library or from his mates so his knowledge of movies was always two or three years behind that of his cinema going friends.

He played in his school band of course which then fed into the theatre company; Mum was never able to put a stop to it despite her best efforts and it was down to a special official looking letter that Miss White had written for him but for some reason never kept a file copy.

He was an excellent musician but once the company took off after the Tri-centenary his Mum began to complain about the time away from his 'family responsibilities'. Once Gray told Miss White he was going to have to leave, she stepped in and wrote a letter on Council headed paper explaining in very general but forceful 'looking' words.

Mum bitched but the last thing she wanted was busybodies coming around and interfering with her house, her kids and her life so Gray's place in the Boyz, and the company, was safe for the time being.

Miss White found him a guitar that he could borrow on a more regular basis and he took it home to practice. Always quietly, always when he should have been sleeping. He said it was the only thing that stopped him leaving home -- that and his brother of course.

He left school with hardly any qualifications -- he was honest enough to blame this as much on the band as having to look after his brother at home -- so had to get whatever work his physical attributes would allow over what his educational ones did. Going into further education wasn't an option. His Mum said she wasn't having him wasting more time trying to get qualifications he was too stupid for, and he had left school -- that was it, out to work for as much as he could earn, not that would be much seeing as he was so stupid.
Hence shelf stacker, door supervisor, security guard, debt collection, because he wasn't old enough to be a bailiff. His uncle taught him to drive and he passed his test first time, which meant he could go out and drive mini-cabs as well. This was of course when Parker met him again.

His mother insisted his wages were paid to him in cash or even better to her, and she knew from contacts how much he got so she took all of his money in one way or another. To make it worse she stopped some of the benefits they were entitled to because of it.

She hadn't worked since before Gray was born and on reflection he did wonder why she was so keen not to claim stuff she could have. Quite simply, she would accept no help from those interfering social services bastards or job centre bastards, placing the burden on her and him to care for his brother.

Gray sipped more of his coffee and smiled, he smiled whenever he mentioned his brother Terry, insisting that he felt no anger for his lost childhood and teens and the restrictions on his growing up.

One of his jobs was a warehouseman in the local supermarket so by default he did the grocery shopping to save Mum time, before he came home. She would give him a list, the money and demand them and the receipt back so she could check.

Like something out of a Roald Dahl book he would often walk to his jobs and save his bus fare for simple things that his contemporaries (such as me) took for granted. He confessed that he had a real sweet tooth and loved Cadburys chocolate above all things, and like Charlie Bucket he would save his money and buy a single bar and eat it walking home, slowly enjoying each morsel, careful to make sure he binned the wrapper and left no evidence that he'd had one.

Even this luxury was eventually denied him by a nosey neighbour telling his Mum that he looked like he'd really enjoyed that bar of chocolate he'd had walking home, enjoyed every square of it he did, pleasure to watch him. His Mum flew into a rage, slammed the door on the neighbour and sat in the kitchen waiting for him to get home, fuming to herself, brewing up like an over-pressurised boiler, waiting to explode.

When he got in, she proceeded to berate him and his slovenly attitude, drinking straight from a half empty bottle of supermarket own label vodka, and his greed at enjoying himself when she had nothing, no treats in her life, fucking nothing! She slammed her bottle of vodka down on the table to point that out.

But now she knew he was capable of walking to work that was that -- he would fucking walk and she'd have the bus fare for groceries, not wasted on children's sweets for a big stupid baby like him. She demanded to know what he had to say for himself, but he didn't respond, knowing of old that this was not going to end well whatever he said or did.

She grew angrier and angrier at his lack of response and eventually she started to throw things at him, including pots and pans, and kitchen utensils - he showed me the scar on his forehead from a well-aimed frying pan he was unable to dodge -- and losing his temper he finally pinned her to the wall, as she howled and screamed in her impotent fury and frustration at his seemingly effortless restraining of her. She spat vodka flavoured spittle into his face but he was used to that.

"I'll fucking have you, you stupid cunt!" she screamed, then with an evil look in her eye, "I'll have the fucking pair of you!"

Using his training he dropped her on her arse and ran, straight to the living room and the fearful, crying Terry and he barricaded them both in. After an hour's ranting and throwing herself at the door, the police arrived because the worried neighbour who had started it all with her disclosure of the chocolate bar had called them.

Getting no response at the front door and knowing that kind of house, they went to the back door and let themselves in, seeing her at the door and the damage she'd inflicted on it and smelling the booze on her breath they took her out to the front garden and the flickering curtains of the informal neighbourhood watch.

Gray opened the door once the policeman shouted who he was and seeing the blood on his head, face and shoulder he patched the wound on the gentle giant's head, smiling and chatting with Terry who was just starting to calm down.

The Woods family were reported to Social Services and seeing as they didn't consider that the huge young man was at risk from the mother and it was a Friday, they were put on a waiting list.

Mavis whined to the police officers, occasionally screaming abuse at the moving net curtains, that she had nothing, nothing for herself besides a crippled dunce of a child and another ungrateful idiot that frittered her hard earned money away on fripperies without a thought for her; the one with nothing.

When she said she had nothing, that wasn't strictly true of course. She had always had the occasional glass of whiskey at the end of the day, but started to drink heavily as her boys got older, and she became more and more anti-social and aggressive towards them.

Gray had started to sleep in Terry's room some months before because mum only got pissed at night and he'd noticed that sometimes when he helped Terry with a shower, there were bruises on his body, around his ribs and stomach, as if Mum had given him a few good punches if Terry did the slightest thing she objected to. He now knew that whatever he did in retaliation could be and probably had been revisited on his defenceless brother.

He came up with a plan; rather than hide the booze he rationed it.

Most of the local off-licenses knew that they weren't to sell her spirits because at the lack of support from the social workers the police had warned them not to, and most of them stuck to it. The neighbours knew about it of course (See her, that mad bitch with the two boys? You know the off-licences aren't to sell her booze no more? Shocking innit...) and on the two occasions a 7-11 store manager broke the ban, the local police knew about it before Mum had reached home.

Using this to his advantage, he'd buy it for her from the supermarkets and hide it.

Gray was out late Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights -- his three eighteen hour work days - so he'd hide the real booze on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays content that by Thursday she be so desperate that as soon as she found it she neck it straight down and would be slumped across the sofa or in her chair or on the floor in her pissed stupor and he would look after Terry.

He asked Terry if Mum was hitting him, and he indicated that she was; but only when she was really drunk. If Terry was upright, she'd punch him in the ribs or kidneys, Gray never found out what her supposed reason was -- he guessed she didn't really need one. As Terry grew into a man, she started on his belly and finally his testicles.

Gray saw a few tears on his brother's face and promised him that he'd look after him whatever.

So Gray would bring out the hidden booze and not leave the house for his late pub shifts until Mum was out cold, then would dash home during his meal break to put Terry to bed seeing mum in heap on the floor, across the table, halfway up the stairs or just sprawled where she fell.

And he would leave her there, often bathed in her own urine. The carpets had long since disappeared and 'her' armchair reeked. As she got worse she even tried to punch Gray but he was a trained bouncer and knew how to deal with pissed up fighters.

It worked most of the time and Terry stayed generally safe and unbruised.

As he approached his twentieth birthday, Gray came home at gone three in the morning after an extremely busy Friday night working the pubs then the nightclubs to find his mother in an unnatural heap at the bottom of the staircase, and trained as he was in first aid he couldn't bring her round. He phoned for an ambulance and the police were called just in case.

Mum was declared dead at the scene by an emergency doctor, and 16 year old Terry was taken into care while Gray went to the police station to 'help with enquiries', seeing as there was a police history between him and his mum.

Locked in an interview room, still in his black suit but deprived of his tie and shoe laces, he was eventually released after lunch the next day by which time the post-mortem confirmed that his late mother's injuries were conducive with someone falling downstairs while extremely inebriated, which the blood tests showed she was. Her time of death was given as 2215-2300 hours when Gray was stood on a pub door talking to three police officers about an incident where some underage girls had kicked off when he refused them entry to the pub he was working. It was notable because they had threatened him that unless he let them in, they'd tell their parents and the police he'd offered to let them in in return for sex.

But the second the rather precocious blonde fifteen year old made the threat, he'd secretly pressed the transmit button on his radio so every doorman and a few policeman within three miles heard the discussion. He even got her to say it again.

The police sergeant was listening in three hundred yards away and walked slowly along to where he was stood with the grinning trio. The sergeant wished Gray a good evening and asked what the problem was. The three young ladies endeavoured to back away but a second officer stopped them. Tears were shed, parents called, and that was that.

The sergeant and PC that had dealt with the girls had clocked off at three, and for some reason no one wanted to phone them. So the detective had called up the CCTV of the event and wouldn't let him go until they'd confirmed that he'd not left the town for those hours.

To make matters worse, the officer investigating his Mum had gone home at 4am thinking his colleague was taking care of the young bouncer; his colleague had thought likewise.

There was no phone in the room, he couldn't afford a mobile and was trapped. He pressed the panic strip on the wall, but no alarm bells went off and no one came, that was broken down apparently.

At eight o'clock the next morning and with an almost bursting bladder he shouted through the glass in the door at a passing cleaner asking to be let out to use the bathroom. The startled cleaner ran to the main police station and could only find two traffic officers. Graham's rather peeved attitude did little to endear him to the traffic cops and they told him to calm down.

He said he was quite prepared to calm down but he didn't want to be beaten up if he pee'd on the floor having been locked in the room for nearly five and a half hours.

The traffic officer escorted him to cells so he could use the toilet there not allowing him to use the staff toilet three doors away from the interview room. At the cell block Gray asked when he could go home, but the new custody officers had come on at 0600 and didn't know who he was or what he was doing. A sergeant was found who picked up some paperwork from someone else's tray that backed up Graham's story. The first investigative officer had written, "Disabled boy left with known inebriate - booze -- duty of care?" with the question mark underlined three times.

None of these new officers were detectives and it showed. There was some discussion about whether this aspect of the incident should be investigated.

It was suggested that he be locked in a cell until that case officer could be contacted. Graham pointed out that he hadn't even been arrested -- one of the traffic officers pointed out that could still be arranged.

The raised voices had a passing inspector stopping at the metal gates. Gray recognised the rank and asked if he could speak to him.

The inspector listened to what was going on and took the boy back to a main office where he was sat down and given another cup of tea and a few biscuits he'd managed to find. The town centre CCTV had been copied and was waiting for collection, even though the pub CCTV had virtually cleared him.

The inspector had checked Graham's record -- he didn't have one. So the inspector told him 'not to leave the country' for a few days and they'd be in touch. He asked the newly arrived station enquiry officer to make sure Graham had all of his stuff and to let him go as the inspector had a meeting to attend.

Graham hadn't slept in 28 hours and bar two almost stale digestive biscuits hadn't eaten in 18 hours and at a shade after mid-day Gray found himself outside of the town main police station with his jacket over his shoulder, two cups of tea and two biscuits between him and starvation and no money and no way of getting the four miles home. He thought about asking the police for a lift but figured they'd probably just arrest him for vagrancy or something.

He walked, after all he was used to that.

His feet were sore, his cheap doorman shoes were designed to look smart not be comfortable for walking long distances and he felt the blisters painfully starting on his heels, and his thigh and calves were screaming at him. The more he walked, the more tired he felt. Once he reached home he sat down in the bare kitchen had no idea what he was going to do next.

He was a capable, honest, hard-working boy that had been treated like a criminal just because his alcoholic mother had died in her own stupor. He didn't have access to the money that was in her name, didn't know when the rent needed paying or the gas or the electric -- no standing orders for his Mum - didn't trust them cheatin' bastards, he didn't know where Terry had been taken, and... to cap it all, no matter what his relationship with her had been, his Mum had died not twelve hours ago, and now he was on his own.

He was fuming; there was no apology from the police for locking him up because technically they hadn't, not in a cell at least, but still nothing just because he was obviously a bouncer, and a big rough-looking one at that.

Even though he was dog tired, hungry, thirsty and extremely footsore, he tried to find out where his brother had been taken by social services. He poured through the phone book, one that hadn't ended up on the fire as kindling, and the duty social worker didn't want to talk to him because he was led to believe that Terry's father was the next of kin and much as he thought he understood the Data Protection Act, really didn't.

Gray pointed out that no one had seen Dad in sixteen years. The social worker was well used to dealing with aggressive and argumentative chavs like this tosser and said that was ridiculous, he knew that Terry's father was helping police with their enquiries.

"That was me!" shouted Gray, "Graham Woods!"

"Now then Mr Woods, there's no reason to lose your temper is there..."

Gray pointed out that he'd spent the night locked in a cold room, sat on a metal chair bolted to the floor because his mother had died, and now his brother (who had never been looked after by anyone but them before) had been dragged off and anything could be happening to him.

The social worker had of course only heard 'locked up; and told Gray that Terry was in the best place and being taken care of by PROFESSIONALS and if he waited until Monday morning he could bring some more clothes to the town hall and make an appointment to speak with the social care team. Perhaps then he'd be allowed to see his brother - under controlled circumstances and conditions.

Thinking on his feet Gray and back to the excuses he'd been badgered with when he was rent collecting, he gave a 'I know I'm beat' sigh and said that was all OK but who was going to come and get Terry's medication. During the pause he added that he would need his water tablets for Sunday morning, he even read the label to him.

This was rubbish, their mum took 'water tablets' not Terry and they had in fact taken all of his meds but this knobber wasn't to know that.

Gray thought on his feet again, being a debt collector encouraged this, and said if he wanted to come round to get it he'd have it ready. He guessed the last thing the social worker would want to do is go out on a Saturday afternoon to that shitty estate and he told Gray to hold the line.

Gray pushed the phone to his ear, opened his mouth to improve his hearing and held his breath, hearing some faint discussion in the background, something else he'd learned when debt collecting.

He heard the words 'at Priory Park' and that rang a bell, it was an old people home across town. So guessing that was all the information he'd get he put the phone down.

He had a shower, slept on his bed for an hour setting the cursed alarm clock that his mother normally set, and when he woke partially rested put on jeans and a T-shirt then jumped on his old pushbike and after checking in the Phone Book for the address, headed across town to The Priory Park Centre.

He arrived late afternoon, introduced himself to a passing care assistant and was shown through to a large day room and was pleased to find Terry sat watching football on a huge TV and surrounded by other people (most of them elderly) and apparently loving it.

Terry was sat in a large high backed chair that looked far more comfortable for him than the one at home, which was part of Mum's three piece suite.

He was wearing a polo shirt and tracksuit trousers, not the faded pyjamas he'd worn for most of his life. Mum had kept Terry to himself and away from people that might abuse him -- for some reason this never included her.

She had taught him at home and he could read and spell out a few words, and had basic maths skills. But he'd lacked company - other than the doctors and nurses that would come to visit when Mum would allow it, that was it.

Gray introduced himself to the supervisor and explained who he was. The supervisor knew the basics of what had happened the night before and was the first person to show any kind of compassion to him, and the gentle hand she put on his arm was almost enough to put him over the edge, and she saw it.

"Let's go and see Terry," she said with a kindly smile, and he was given a mug of tea and some sandwiches as it was afternoon tea. Terry was sat next to an older gentleman that like him was a West Ham fan and they were deep in conversation about the outcome of the second half of the match and the failings of both teams. The old boy had no problem with Terry's speech impediment and chatted to him like he didn't have one.

Gray watched as he saw his brother more animated than he ever had been before. Terry was the talk of the centre as he was such as lovely boy and he loved the old dears cooing over him, Terry had never been the centre of positive attention before and his glowing face showed it. Graham smiled too.

"There," said the supervisor, "I told you he was OK didn't I."

Being a Saturday Gray didn't think for a second he was going to get to meet anyone that could tell him anything, but low and behold as Gray sat there holding his brother's hand and explaining about Mum a tall man arrived and sat next to them.

"You must be Graham," he said, "Terry's told me all about you," and a huge grin spread across his face. It was the start of a great friendship between all three.

Paul had been the night duty social worker and had popped in to see how Terry was doing and sat and chatted with both younger men about the passing of their mother and that Terry could stay as long as he liked. At the end of the football match (a win for the Hammers) Terry fell asleep in his chair. Paul took Terry to the office and invited him to sit down again, bringing out a box of Mr Kipling's cakes, something that Gray and Terry could barely remember having.

Paul kept pushing the box to the wide eyed boy saying that he'd had several long chats with Terry overnight and that morning and he was aware of their situation. Paul was a long served social worker by trade and had worked with families with problems, and admitted himself surprised that he'd never met Terry before.
Gray told him about his father leaving, how Mum had been, their childhood and growing up, Mum's drinking and attacks on Terry and how he'd tried to hold it all together; Paul made him another cup of coffee.

"Don't beat yourself up Graham," said the social worker. "Believe it or not you've been a victim of domestic violence, no two ways about it. Your Mum manipulated you to such an extent that you didn't even realise life could be any different for you. All that shit with controlling the money, wanting receipts? Classic DV mate, BUT you've survived it and we'll see you and your brother out the other side of it I promise."

Graham took a deep breath and finished his coffee, feeling the weight starting to lift from his shoulders.

He went home and up to his room. He picked up the hated alarm clock that Mum insisted was his eighth birthday present with a nasty humourless smile on her face, the evil bitch had even wrapped it.

That fucking alarm clock, that ever-present, loudly ticking, old fashioned, importuning, hateful ringing that even now could send a chill down his spine when he heard one, and as he stood there hearing the constant second by second by second ticking he threw it on the floor with a yell, stomping his size eleven boots on the back of the thing repeatedly until it was broken and parts of it spread across his hard, cold, bare bedroom floorboards, the first of Mum's insidious, ever present controls on his life to go.

He stopped and realised he was out of breath and crying. With some guilt he realised that it was Mum he was stomping on, her memory, her presence and he thought about how he did actually play a part in her death, he supplied her booze for fuck's sake.

He sat on his bed looking at the clock and realised it was gone, that hard, loveless controlling influence that had affected every inch of his life for as far back as he could remember, gone. He was free.

"You were a victim of domestic violence Graham," he heard Paul's words, "and you survived..."

Yeah, fucking right; he HAD survived and he would never regret it.

He threw the remains of the clock into his bin without a second thought and walked downstairs with a new resolve.

He took Mum's stinking armchair from the living room and her stinking mattress from the iron framed bed and threw them in a heap in the middle of the garden. Next he threw on the few clothes she had left -- same for him, one on and one in the wash, that was all anyone needed. It wasn't until he was nine or ten that he realised that none of his friends went to school wearing clothes still damp from the clothes horse.

In a final act of revenge he poured the remainder of her booze, a bottle of cheap brandy and half bottle of whiskey, over the top and threw on a match. It caught and he watched the flames for a few moments, remembering to drop the bottles into the recycling box in the side passage with the wheelie bins.

He went to bed and slept a peaceful dreamless sleep, free from the tick-tick-tick slave master that had been there for as long as he could remember.

On Sunday morning he called in sick at the supermarket. The duty manager started to complain and whine about young people with no stamina and what they did to malingerers in his day but as soon as Gray mentioned that his mother had died the boss changed tone.

That wasn't sick time, he said and that while he wasn't actually entitled to compassionate leave because of he hadn't worked their for long enough, his Mum had been an excellent customer and a friend, and he said that they would sign him off for the rest of the week and if there was anything they could do, he had only to ask. For the first time in his life, Gray was paid for doing nothing.

He went to the kitchen cupboard and got mops, buckets, bleach, disinfectants and scrubbed the place from top to bottom, finally losing that smell of urine from either Terry's unchanged pads or Mum's alcoholic incontinence that had become part of his life.

He took the heavy metal bed frame to bits and carried it down to the front garden where his retired next door neighbour asked if he could have it to add to his pile of metal in his shed. Graham was so pleased that he carried them round to the old boy's garden. He also offered his condolences and those of his wife.

Gray thanked him and seeing the old man subconsciously touch his wallet in his pocket, added, "No flowers, she hated flowers." She didn't hate flowers, she hated the idea of paying for something you could only look at and served no practical purpose other than to look pretty.

"Oh," said the old boy, "OK then, perhaps a donation to her favourite charity?"

"I'll let you know."

It was obvious that Gray had never registered a death, organised a funeral, wake and all of the other legal paperwork necessary when someone dies. Paul had and stepped in to help.

On Monday he drove Gray to the hospital and collected his mother's death certificate with which he could then register her death. Following this, he went to the local Co-op funeral directors and arranged the best funeral that could be purchased with the funeral grant Paul had arranged with Social Security. It was enough, no church service needed, no cars, no flowers, only a non-denominational speaker that Paul knew and would come along and preside just for petrol money as a favour.

For all her faults Mum had been fastidious with her filing, especially the financial side, what with her being a control freak and they soon found her bank details. They went to the bank and with the death certificate arranged for part of his money to be withdrawn for the funeral even though this was taken care of by the grant. The bank also sorted out a bridging loan while her estate was sorted out.

Only the three of them went to the local crematorium to see Mum on her way. Almost everyone else had fallen out with the bad tempered old cow that ruled her poor boys with a rod of iron. Her ashes were spread in the garden of rest with her parents.

Once Terry was settled for the evening, Paul took Graham to the pub and despite his working in such establishments for eighteen months bought him his first pint of beer. In the corner of the lounge bar he'd never been in even though it was less than 100 yards from his house, Graham told Paul about his life and its limitations, his one C grade GCSE in history and his singular lack of any qualification other than that.

He'd been at work for full time now three years, having started to deliver papers twice a day at thirteen, and was experienced in stacking shelves in a cut price supermarket, throwing people out of pubs, getting rent out of people or helping them move their belongings out of houses in a worse condition than his.

Paul saw that Graham, although remaining his usual outwardly placid calm self, was raging inside. His treatment by his mother, by his employers and clients, by the police following the death of his mother and the animosity of the social workers after Terry was taken in was burning inside him.

After three pints, it was off his chest and he seemed happier for it. Paul saw him home with a further promise they'd sort it all out.

Gray discussed with Terry about coming home, and Terry confided that he didn't want to come home, he loved being at the centre where he didn't have to be carried up any stairs, dropped onto a toilet too low for him to climb off of, where everything was on one level and they had arranged an electric wheelchair so he could get around on his own. The centre took him swimming once a week as part of his physical therapy, were helping him with his English and Maths and had arranged with the local college for him to attend two days a week and improve his education. Besides that, the centre had Sky Sports and the little old ladies were so enthralled with his presence that they let him and his new best mate Dave watch Premier League football including, of course, their beloved West Ham.

Gray was actually really pleased and Paul could see it in his face. "Right then Terry," said Paul, "Now you're settled, we'd better get this brother of yours sorted out hadn't we."

Terry grinned.

Paul had arranged that Graham move in to a small flat on the understanding he gave up the big, now virtually empty three bedroom house they'd lived in. The rent and upkeep was minimal, and had none of the memories and bad feeling that his childhood home had. Gray even had a grant from the council to decorate it and lay carpet. He painted it bright colours, put up some posters, bought a new mattress and began life again, still working his peculiar series of jobs. He even invited Paul, Terry, Ray and Terry's mate Dave from the centre round for a housewarming.

Over slices of pizza and glasses of Coke, they all laughed and chatted about Gray's new start, "You've got a brain in that head of yours Graham," Paul leaned forward and handed Gray a big brown envelope (which he still has) with a prospectus and application forms for the local college.

"Yeah tosser, time you got educated like us clever people." Ray had just announced that he was starting University in Bournemouth the following September.

Two weeks later Paul took him to get his hair styled rather than the number one hair cut his mother had done on him and Terry for as long as he could remember. Then to the open evening and he signed up for a whole set of GCSE's he could take a couple of days and a few evenings a week. A year later he was starting a conversion course that would qualify him to start a degree. Graham had said he'd like to be a social worker but Paul said no, there were better paid jobs where he could right the wrongs of the world.

So he went to Exeter University to study law and three years later left with 'LLB' after his name. Bullied by Paul the social worker and his tutor, he then sat another years training for the Bar Professional training course, undertook Pupillage in barristers' chambers and a year later was called to the bar as a twenty five year old, and was almost unrecognisable from the quietly withdrawn skinhead boy that had sat in a police interview room after his mother's death, six years previously.

He had shown a natural talent for the work and his chambers went from strength to strength. He prosecuted and defended often specialising in domestic violence cases, many of which he did Pro bono as even he admitted he was paid a ridiculous amount of money to do what he did.

He worked for several government departments, some councils and some London Boroughs. His drive and his sense of humour had made him a sought after name in the law.

Terry was still in the same centre and still supporting West Ham. Gray arranged for him and, by implication a carer, to have a season ticket for home games and the centre would arrange transport, by train and underground, by far Terry's favourite part of the day. He also bought one for Dave.

"So there you have it," he said, "legal professional and no need to make coffee for anyone, despite what Ray says."

"Wow!" I said blinking back tears, "None of us knew, we all thought that you were just a big lad that didn't mix well. Oh Gray, I'm so sorry." I said, stroking a hand up his muscular bicep, "And being a barrister? I mean, you don't look like you spend your life wearing a wig and arguing with people over points of law," feeling as close to him as I did right then I squeezed his muscles at their widest point, "you look like you pick up cars and throw them over fences if someone upsets you." I sipped my coffee and giggled at him.

He put a hand over mine and squeezed it, "I suppose that's a compliment," he said smiling back.

"Definitely," I said, "up until five minutes ago I thought I was having dinner with a good looking taxi driving bailiff/doorman bass player, now I find he's a good looking, barrister bass player."

"Is there any difference?" he said.

I leaned closer towards him. "None whatsoever," the food, the wine, the ambience, the closeness, the fact this gorgeous hunk had gone from sexy and a bit scary to sexy sophisticated in seconds, I whispered in his ear, "I still fancy the hell out of him."

He leaned forward and kissed me gently on the lips, and I responded. The waiter closed in and refilled our coffee cups. "Thank you," Gray said, "I'll have the bill if I may please." The waiter smiled and walked away.

"Shall we go halves?" I asked.

"Lovely Natalie," he leaned forward, "this evening has been marvellous and only twenty years late, but if you think I'm going to ruin the atmosphere by anything as nasty as Snow White paying for her dinner then think again." He took the paper slip from the waiter and handed him a card.

"Thank you Mr Woods," said the waiter and swiped it. As he handed the machine across I was really pleased that we hadn't gone halves, the bill was nearly £300, which even half would have been a big lump out of my salary!

I felt trapped, I couldn't let him spend all that much on me! "Gray!" I said blushing brightly, "Look, I err... let me make a contribution... that's a huge amount..." he grinned and shook his head at the waiter who made a point of handing Gray his card back so I could see it was platinum American Express.

"Don't worry Nats," he said, and looked a bit embarrassed, "when I deal with my corporate clients, that's about half an hours work, often less; trust me, I'm good for it!"

"Thank you!" I leaned over and kissed him again. He stood up and the waiter held my chair as I got up and it really looked like Gray had envied him the task.

We walked out into the foyer and I held his arm. I looked to my left into the large mirrored wall and saw the tall handsome barrister escorting the hot looking curvy brunette in a little black dress and it took me a second to really believe that the hot looking chick was me and the Real Man I was with was just as into me as I was him!

I was so tempted to get my phone and send Gemma a text thanking her for her advice and me dressing up. I felt like a million dollars and right now, I wanted this evening to carry on.

"Can we go for a walk in park Gray?" I said looking up into face giving it the best Bambi eyes I could.

He smiled and walked me across the perfectly mown grass, I stopped and slipped off my heels feeling the wonderful cool grass against my bare feet.

We reached the side of the lake and Gray put his arm around my shoulder and I lay my head on his, nothing said, just a sweet romantic moment the like of which neither of us had known in too long. We stopped just shy of the woods; Gray stepped behind me and put his arms around me and whispered,

"Look..." he said pressing his cheek against mine and pointing along the tree line. There was a roe deer closely followed by a small fawn.

"Wow..." I whispered back to him, "it's beautiful."

I closed my eyes and rubbed my cheek against his; he squeezed me tight.

"Yeah," he breathed deeply, his hot breath on my neck and my ear making me tremble, "you just ate their cousin..."

I spluttered out a laugh, and the startled deer ran back into the woods. Laughing with the braking of the sexual tension, I turned in his arms and slipped mine around his neck, dropping my shoes and grinning up into his handsome face.

He was smiling too; I moved my face to his, and we kissed mashing out faces together, our tongues writhing together in a wet mess. I felt his hands across the small of back, at my sides and as we kissed resting softly on the rise of my bottom.

We stopped for breath; "What shall we do now?"

"Whatever you want to do honey," he said.

"Let's walk for a bit, I don't want this fantastic night to end."

"It doesn't have to Natalie," he said and thought for a moment, "Follow me." I picked up my shoes and held his hand.

After a long walk around the park we ended up back in his car and drove out to another place I'd often seen, but had never been to. It was a large out of town Hotel, club, golf club, and fitness centre all combined. Parker had tried hard to get a membership but they were just a bit too exclusive for that wannabe millionaire and his mix of second hand golf clubs in an overly ostentatious golf bag and trolley.

The Freemasonry turned him down first and lots of the clientele were the same, and I was to find out that he had screwed a couple of their members via dodgy contracts and was black balled by at least four of the membership!

None of that for Graham though and his Aston Martin was parked by a valet and we entered and again we were greeted with, "Ah Mr Woods, what a pleasure to see you again."

Shown to a small table there was a large dance floor and a small orchestra playing a mix of music styles and he ordered a half bottle of champagne for me, taking the occasional sip from my glass. "Let's dance," he said as the orchestra played some slow music and holding hands we got up and danced slowly to the music.

Within moments we were kissing again, and it just kept getting more and more romantic. He ran his hands across my body, sifting hands through my hair bringing all my senses to life and I was burning up inside and I just wanted him.

"Gray," I whispered my voice trembling, "what are your thoughts on sex on a first date?"

"In general terms I'm pretty much for it," he whispered back, "so long as we aren't talking about right here and right now, I'm pretty sure the committee wouldn't like it."

I giggled, "Well if you're going to get all precious about it," I said, "I was thinking somewhere slightly more private, can we get a room here?"

"We don't need to honey," he said, "my place is about five minutes up the road, if that's private enough?"

"That's should do just fine." I said, so comfortable in his arms.

I collected my wrap and sat in his car that had been brought round the second we'd thanked the maître for our evening, slightly nervous about what was about to happen. I was heading back to his place for one thing, to strip out of our clothes, climb into bed and slowly make love. I was starting to feel that wonderful, nervous, sexy feeling that I first had driving home with my sex toys a bare six weeks ago. This time though, my sexual play would be with real person, a 'real man', who would be loving me back.

My mind began to race, would he like what he saw? Once my Wonderbra came off what would he make of my big boobs; and my belly, OK I wasn't fat as such but I'd had three children for fuck's sake. I had stretch marks than ran in pale white lines across my flanks, had I picked that stray hair that grew from my right nipple, he was tall and muscular, I was nearly forty... what the fuck was I thinking!

I nervously straightened up and saw that we were driving through large brick pillars and there was his house. His place was huge and now that the moon had dropped I could only pick out a suggestion of the detail highlighted by the few spotlights that lined the drive and a couple of security lights that came on.

This time I waited for him to come around and open my door, I was getting used to it!

He kissed my hand and I followed him along a paved path towards a red brick building and a dark blue front door. He opened it with a couple of keys and switched on a few lights.

"Welcome," he said and at the bottom of the stairs he grabbed me and pulled me into his arms, we broke for a moment and I pulled him up the stairs, I didn't have a clue where I was going from there but I knew that I really wanted to be in bed with him and him with me. I guessed right because he switched the lights off and followed me up.

At the top of the stairs he swung me effortlessly up into his arms like I weighed nothing and carried me along the hallway until he pushed against the door at the very end. The room was illuminated by bedside lamps and it didn't have that confusion of masculine and feminine that the room I shared with Parker had. This room just looked cool, with a stylish sophistication. Gray admitted to me later that so it bloody should, the person he'd paid to design it has cost him a fortune.
He dropped me back to my feet and continued kissing me, I felt him feeling around the back of my dress for the zip. I reached over my shoulder taking his questing hand and taking it straight to the well-hidden zip. With my fingers I started to undo his tie, which I easily unpicked pulling it from around his neck to drop in on his bed. Next I started to push his jacket from around his neck which meant he had to let go of me and the zipper that was now level with my waist.

His jacket landed on the bed and while I could easily have shaken my shoulders to let my dress fall to the floor, I wanted him to do have that pleasure. He did and I was left in just my black underwear and heels. I happened to look over his shoulder at the huge mirror on his wardrobe and all of my in-car, pre-fuck nerves left me and saw how fucking hot I looked!

Yeah! He obviously thought so too and he positively growled and pulled me back into his arms to kiss me and grab some of the places he'd just revealed.

I next started on his crisp white shirt and undid a button at a time, as he placed warm hands on my bottom pulling me towards him. Once it was undone I leant forward to kiss him again and slide my hands up his chest feeling my fingers slid through the dark rough curly hair on his chest and shoulders. Our tongues clashed and his hands squeezed the cheeks of my arse. I felt so horny it was amazing. He stepped back from me and undid the belt on his trousers.

I sat on the bed and unclipped my heels, while he sat next to me and undid the laces on his shoes. Next he was pushing me back on the bed and stood stepping out of his trousers. He was wearing grey, tight stretchy boxer shorts and his body looked like something from a TV advert. Fuck he looked hot.

We rolled on the bed together kissing, stroking, caressing, until I felt his hands at the back of my bra and I felt my boobs released from the tension they'd been under all night. He pulled the bra off of me and looked down at my boobs grinning.

"Bloody hell Nats," he said, "you're fucking gorgeous!"

"Look at you Gray," I said brushing my hand across his chest again, feeling the lines of his muscles.

He started to kiss my neck, his hands at my sides gradually feeling towards my full still firm tits. Finally he was holding them, kissing down towards my nipples extending out into his palms. I gasped as his lips closed over them, drawing them out into his mouth in a tingling rush of pleasure.

I was trembling, "Hey Nats," said my old school friend, "calm down honey, there's all the time in the world."

"I know," I whispered with a hint of humour, "only don't take too long about it."

He laughed and I laughed, we fell to kissing each other and pretty soon we were on the bed proper with him sliding down my body, kissing my goose-pimpled flesh as he went. My neck, my cleavage, my tits paying close attention to my nipples, then my tummy until he reached the line of my pubic hair.

I both wanted his lips on my puss and didn't with equal measure, but my inner slut helped me out and I raised and parted my thighs to let Gray know that he could do just what he wanted to me, being it oral sex, fingering or just sliding up and sliding in.

As it turned out he did all three. He worked his tongue through my labia and into my sex, fuck but it was HOT! As he worried at my clit, his long middle finger was pushed inside and found the rough tell-tale skin of my G-spot and scrubbed across it; as my cervix tried to turn inside out, my mouth was crying out, "Yes! Oh Gray, fucking yes!"

I came.

Gray kept up his ministrations and brought me through it, with me part cradling, part forcing his head down into my pussy.

I was right; those nights ago when I realised that I needed a real man, not just a real three dimensional, flesh and blood man but a 'Real Man' that could work his magic on my body and take me to those places in all the mummy porn.

So impressed was he with my almost instant orgasm that he went for it again, eventually as I was working my way up to my third I pulled him up and away from my genitalia, his face still wet with my juices, to kiss me and fuck me.

We kissed, me not noticing the moisture, my moisture, on his handsome face. "I bought some condoms..."

"No need," I said shaking my head and putting a single finger to his lips, "I'm on the pill, so none of that nasty rubber to get in the way." I toyed with telling him that as soon as I found out that Parker had been screwing other women I'd gone to my Doctor and had some test to make sure he hadn't given me anything, but figured that was a sure way to wreck the mood. Instead I thought I'd let him into the other secret. "I'd just finishing my last cycle when you asked me out, and... well... I think I just saw this was going to happen and I went back on the pill again, just in case."

"Wow," he grinned, "That's so lovely," he said, "But then you are lovely Nats." We kissed again, and I felt his erection pressing against my labia with a natural movement he was pushing up and into me and I groaned.

"Oh shit Gray, oh yeah just like that," he pushed and just kept on going. I'd only made love to Parker so it came as a real surprise when he just kept going until I was sure I felt him touch my cervix. Fuck, but he was a big boy!

All at once he settled into the most wonderful rhythm and I knew that I was going to come again, and he helped out by sliding his spare hand down from my waist to cup my rounded buttock exposed by my thighs raised to allow him access and to hold him tight.

He squeezed my arse, and pushed hard into me, pulling me up to meet his thrust, "Oh Gray," I hissed, "thank you, thank you, it's so wonderful," he kissed me, softly and gently and we looked into each other's faces and I trembled to a most unexpected orgasm, my first ever during intercourse and all the more wonderful that it was about the emotional as much as it was the physical.

"Ooooh Gray, I gasped.

"Plenty more where that came from Darling," he smiled. He took hold of my legs and raised them over his shoulders and leant forward over me; I knew from experience that this was best position for deep penetration and knowing this I grinned up into Gray's smiling face biting my bottom lip, "Ooh yeah," I purred with narrowed eyes.

This was evidently the kind of encouragement that Gray was looking for and he pushed down hard to a depth I'd never known before and I gasped and cried out at the same time pulling Gray hard to me to let him know that I was more than happy with what he was doing.

"Fuck me Gray, fuck me," I gasped as he pounded into me, his vigour and masculinity making me feel hot, cool but above all feminine and taken, just what I'd wanted all those nights ago.

There was one more thing, and feeling him thrusting hard into me I just knew how good it was going to be. The look on Gray's face showed me how much he was into me, and not just physically; his look was passionate and possessive and I felt wanted, more than I ever had ever before.

"Gray," I gasped, "On my hands and knees... please... take me... Oooh Gray!" Just my asking was enough to push me into another come and Gray was sensitive enough to notice and screwed me through it.

"That better?" he said with a cheeky grin.

"Oooh fuck yeah!" I had a few trembles as I came down, letting my legs slip back down around him.

"Now Natalie, you said something about me taking you from behind," I smiled and nodded biting my lip again.

"That OK?" I said being all girly.

"Yeah, I suggest you get on your hands and knees."

"Oooh Gray," I sighed, "I just love it when you get all... masterful."

"You know it Nats, now do as you're told and get on your hands and knees." Gray moved back slightly and I pulled my knees together, then in another movement I swung them over until I was kneeling in the appropriate position.

"OK Gray," I said, "I'm ready..."

I felt his hands on my hips and the end of his prick brushing against my arse cheeks. His knees went either side of mine and one hand disappeared and then he was inside me and pushing straight into my already flushed, sopping wetness and went straight in to the most wonderful depth, both hands back on my hips and pulling me hard back against him.

"Oh yeah!" I hissed, and Gray proceeded to do what I'd dreamt of and he fucked me hard, fast and deep and I started to come straight away.

"Oh Christ, Natalie, you're so... so hot, shit, I don't think I'll be able to hold off for much longer..."

"Fuck me Gray, fuck me, come, come, coooooome! Oh shiiiit!" I shrieked and trembled all the way through my last orgasm, "Oh yeah..." I hissed feeling half a dozen hot spurts inside my spasming cunt and hearing Gray's grunted, "Oh fuck yeah," as he reached his orgasm.

Gray pulled me down with him and we spooned, his huge cock losing some of its turgidity but staying safe inside me. I turned my head and we kissed, Gray pulling me safe into the most wonderful relaxing cuddle, I didn't feel him pull the duvet over us as we both drifted in the most wonderful, restful sleep, his hands holding my warm tingling breasts, the glow from my uterus still tingling with the occasional, lovely aftershock from the best night's work I'd ever had.

We slept very well.