‘Hold still,’ she said impatiently. Her belly brushed against me, and I realized with some surprise that I had an erection. She blinked quickly and I supposed that she had noticed it too; but she did not step back. Instead, almost involuntarily, she brushed against me once more, only with a greater pressure than before. I lifted my hand and cradled her ample breast on my open palm. After a minute or so of that I took her nipple in between my finger and thumb. It wasn’t difficult to find. It was as hard as the lid on a teapot, and just as big. Then she turned away.

‘Perhaps we should stop now,’ she said.

‘If you’re intending to stop the swelling, you’re too late,’ I told her. Her eyes passed lightly over me as I said it. Colouring a little, she folded her arms across her breasts and flexed her long neck against her backbone.

Enjoying the very deliberateness of my own actions, I stepped close to her and looked slowly down from her face, across her breasts and her belly, over her thighs to the hem of the green cotton dress. Reaching down I caught hold of it. Our fingers brushed as she took the hem from me and held it at her waist where I had placed it. Then I knelt before her, my eyes lingering on her underthings for long seconds before I reached up and slipped her knickers round her ankles. She steadied herself with one hand on my shoulder and stepped out of them, her long smooth thighs trembling slightly as she moved. I looked up at the sight I had coveted, and then beyond, to a face that smiled and then vanished as the dress rose up over her head, revealing her breasts, her neck and then her head again, which shook its cascade of shiny black hair like a bird fluttering the feathers on its wings. She dropped the dress to the floor and stood before me, naked but for her garter-belt, her stockings and her shoes. I sat back on my haunches and with an excitement that ached to be liberated I watched her slowly turn herself in front of me, showing me the profile of her pubic hair and her erect nipples, the long chute of her back and the two perfectly matched halves of her bottom, and then once more the swell of her belly, the dark pennant that seemed to prick the air with its own excitement, and the smooth, quivering shanks.

I picked her up and took her into the bedroom where we spent the rest of the afternoon, caressing, exploring and blissfully enjoying a feast of each other’s flesh.

The afternoon drifted lazily into evening, with light sleep and tender words; and when we rose from my bed having satisfied our lust, we found our appetites the more ravenous.