“I’ve realised a lot of things about me and about us these past couple of weeks,” continued Jacky, her voice only just above a whisper. “Ever since we came up with this plan, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about who we are and what we share. And tonight, after all that, I’ve realised I’m more ashamed to be hiding something from you than I am about what it actually is. Make sense?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Jacky saw Tania nod again, and then she slowly reached across to link her fingers gently with Jacky’s on the gear stick. Jacky welcomed the connection and held Tania’s hand tightly.

She closed her eyes briefly, then swallowed. “The only person to go down on me was my first girlfriend. Her name was Sandra. We met at college. She was a couple of years ahead of me, and she’d had a few girlfriends. I think she saw me as a bit of a challenge—nineteen, virgin territory and all that. I thought I was the luckiest woman on earth to score someone like her. We dated a few times and kissed and stuff, and then she seduced me one night after drinks in the student bar. Took me back to the flat she rented with two other girls.”

Jacky briefly looked at Tania again and blinked a couple of times before pushing on with her story.

“We fucked each other with fingers first. She came. I didn’t. She was a bit rough, and I wasn’t used to that, and it made me clam up a bit. She told me to relax, told me I wasn’t making it easy for her.”

Tania gave a small gasp, but Jacky ignored it and carried on.

“We had another drink, some cheap wine shit she had in the fridge. It helped, I guess—I loosened up a bit. She came at me again, a bit gentler this time, and I got into it a lot more. I was getting more and more turned on and—” She stopped talking as a blush spread heatedly across her chest and throat. “She said she wanted to lick me, and although I was nervous because it was my first time, I was feeling a bit bolder from the wine, so I pushed her head down there.”

Jacky closed her eyes, trying to talk past the memories without actually feeling them. “She pushed her face into me and licked me a few times, and it felt…wonderful. She asked me if I wanted her to carry on, and I said yes, and then her face was really in there, her tongue doing fantastic things to me.” Her face was flaming now as she neared the crucial part of her story.

Tania released her hand to snake an arm around her neck and played with the back of Jacky’s hair. It was an action that always soothed her.