Jilly Cooper - Riders

“There,” she said, pointing to the outside calf of her right leg and the inside of her ankles.

“That’s better, a bit higher.”

Billy, crooning with contrition, moved the dock leaves up to her knees.

“I shouldn’t have let you come down here.”

“Oh, yes, you should,” said Janey softly. “A bit higher.”

His hand had reached the inside of her left thigh now. His fingers were so gentle, she could feel the damp cool of the dock leaves against her burning red legs.

“Higher,” she whispered.

As though acting on their own, Billy’s fingers crept up, and dropped the dock leaves as he met a fuzz of damp pubic hair dividing around the skimpiest of pants. He looked up, and found her smiling at him through her tears.

“Enter these enchanted woods, you who dare,” she said mockingly. “Go on, that’s the only way you can cure the hurt.”

“Oh, Christ, Janey,” he muttered, feeling the moisture between her legs. The next minute he had moved up the bank beside her, putting his arms around her, and kissing her almost reverently, and she was kissing him back, her tongue expertly caressing his tongue and the inside of his lips. His hand found the wonderful generous breasts, with the nipples hard as hazelnuts, and he felt her draw in her stomach as his hand crept downwards. She had exactly the right amount of flesh on her. Her hands were caressing his bare back, her fingers burrowing in his hair.

Jesus, he said to himself incredulously, this amazingly beautiful girl really wants me. Oh, please God, don’t let me botch it up by coming too quickly.

He undid the buttons of her shirt with trembling hands and buried his face in the billowy cleavage, breathing in her scent.

“My nettle stings at the top need a bit more attention,” Janey said, with a gasp of laughter, so he slid his hand underneath her pants, finding her clitoris, which was as hard as her nipples.

“Oh, please go on, please, please,” she moaned, then shuddered and gave a long contented sigh, and he felt her throbbing to stillness.

“Come inside me, I want you,” she said a moment later.

“Not yet.” His experience of outdoor screwing was that one always got worried about keepers crashing through the bracken and came too quickly. But she wouldn’t listen to him, sitting up with her breasts tumbling, undoing his belt with practiced skill. Jeans were really hell to get out of, he thought, like getting a woman out of a roll-on, and his cock stuck out through the hole in his pants, so he had difficulty getting them off too.

After all her London lovers, Janey suddenly realized what a marvelous body Billy had, with the broad shoulders, flat stomach, and the incredibly muscular buttocks and thighs, from riding so much.

“God, you’re strong,” she said.

Billy laughed. “You should try Rupert. When he squeezes a horse with his legs you can hear it groan.”

“I’ll never last a second,” he warned, as he was sucked into the warm spongy whirlpool, feeling her vaginal muscles gripping him, feeling her hands caressing his buttocks, moving with him.

“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I’ve got to come.”

For a few seconds he lay on top of her, feeling the delicious warmth. Then he rolled off, pulling up a handful of grass to wipe her dry.

Janey grinned. “I hope there aren’t any nettles in it.”

“Are they still murder?”

“Much better. I’m beginning to understand about the pleasure-pain principle. Maybe de Sade had a point.”

He brushed a green beetle out of her hair. “Sorry I came so quickly.”

“I should have been offended if you hadn’t. Wouldn’t have said much for my sex appeal. Anyway, I’d already come once when you were stroking me, so I could afford to be generous.”

Billy looked down at his flaccid cock. “A bad workman blames his tool,” he said.

He lit them both cigarettes to keep off the midges. Janey lay on her elbow, looking up at him through half-closed eyes.

“How come you sell yourself so short when you’re such a megastar?”

Billy shrugged: “I’ve always hunted in pairs with Rupe.”

“So?”

“No one’s likely to look at me when he’s around, so he usually gets the girls.”

“That’s not what I heard.” Janey combed her hand through his black chest hair. “I think you’re stunning.”

“And I don’t meet many girls like you. I didn’t want to rush my fences.”

He put out a hand to bracket one of the brown breasts. “You’re so beautiful.” He felt his cock rearing up like a kite. “I think I might hit better form this time, or are the midges eating you?”

“I’d much rather something else ate me.”

Billy looked at her lascivious face, mascara-smudged under her eyes, crimson lipstick kissed away. Slowly she edged up the bank, until her bush was level with his face.

“Oh” she murmured, as he rolled over and got to work, “Oh, sweet, sweet William, this is definitely the lap of honor.”

Billy laughed and carried on.

By the time they set off back to the house a huge red setting sun was spiked on the poplar copse like a balloon about to pop. Pigeons flapped towards the wood.

“Helen and Rupert are back,” said Billy. “Come and say hello.”

Janey shook her head. “I must get home.”

“But you can’t,” he said, appalled. “You’ve only just come.”

Janey giggled. “You can say that again. I’m not up to meeting anyone at the moment. Anyway, they’re virtually in-laws.”

“You can’t just go.” Billy looked like a small boy left behind by his parents after the first day out from prep school. “I’m going to Lisbon tomorrow,” he went on. “We haven’t talked about anything. Why don’t you come with me?”

“I’ve got to work.”

“Will you write to me? I’ll be back for the Horse of the Year show on the first of October.”

“I’ll be back from America about the third or fourth. You can leave a number with the Features desk.”

“Please don’t go. I can’t bear it.”

“It’s been so perfect,” she said. “I don’t want to come in and make polite conversation, I must get back to London and write it all down before I forget it.”

“Not all of it.”

“No, the glade’s our secret. See you at Wembley.”

And with that he had to be content.

He couldn’t go straight into the house. He walked round in a daze, watching the sun set and the stars come out. He couldn’t believe it, just as when he was a small boy he couldn’t believe anyone as dazzling as Rupert could choose him as a friend.

He walked into the kitchen to find Helen rather ostentatiously clearing away the remains of lunch and heating a bottle for Marcus.

“I’m sorry, Helen, lunch was marvelous.”

“Badger didn’t think so. He’s just thrown up most of the chicken and potato salad on our bedroom carpet. You left the larder open and the fridge and the freezer, and the butter in the sun. Are you in love or something?”

The next day they set off for Portugal, Greece, then Germany, then back without a break for the Horse of the Year show at Wembley. It was the longest four weeks of Billy’s life. When he couldn’t get Janey on the telephone he nearly flew back. He discussed her endlessly with Rupert.

“You know I’m hopeless at playing the field. I want to marry her.”

Rupert looked thunderstruck. “You can’t marry her. You don’t even know her.”

“I’ve spent a whole day with her.”

“You haven’t even screwed her yet?”

“I have, too,” said Billy sulkily, “and it was marvelous.”

Rupert looked even more disapproving. “Then she’s just a whore, going to bed with you on the first date. It wasn’t even a date. She came to interview you, wormed it all out of you. You wait until her piece appears. ‘Billy Lloyd-Foxe is not only a silver medalist, he also gets the gold in the sack.’ ”

“Oh, fuck off,” said Billy furiously. “Why d’you reduce everything to your own disgusting level?”

The moment Billy got back he rang the news desk at Janey’s paper, to be told that she was away. Her interview with Jack Nicholson had taken longer than expected — Billy wondered miserably what form it had taken — and she was expected back sometime that week.

Now it was the fifth day of the Horse of the Year show and there was no sign of her. He must have passed the competitors’ board fifty times a day in the hope of a message. Every time he saw a tawny mane of hair in the crowd his stomach disappeared. His fears that she’d been nice to him only because she wanted some good quotes were multiplied when he talked to Joanna Battie and Dudley Diplock.

“Did they know her?” he asked.

“ ’Course I do,” said Joanna. “She’s her paper’s star writer, hang gliding one week, going into battle in a tank the next, interviewing Prince Charles the next. Pretty high-powered stuff.”

“Very pretty,” said Billy.

“Very,” said Dudley with a wolfish laugh. “Puts herself about by all accounts. Fleet Street claims she got to the top on her back.”

“On her front,” said Joanna. “Janey’s much too liberated to accept the missionary position.”

Billy felt quite sick. “Are you sure?”

“Well, let’s say she’s a bloody good journalist and, like most of them, she’s not too particular how she gets her information. They pay her well. I reckon she’s on twenty thou a year, don’t you, Joanna?”

After a sleepless night, Billy talked to Rupert as they exercised the horses. Rupert was reassuringly outraged.

“For God’s sake! Remember the things they’ve said about you and me in the past, even implying we’re a couple of fags. You know it’s all fairy tales. They make it up to excite themselves. Christ, Revenge is sluggish. I’m going to have to nail up his box during the day to stop the public stuffing him with goodies.”