Messing About on the River by Kumquatqueen
Indulge in the tantalizing allure of ‘Messing About on the River’ by Kumquatqueen. Dive into a world of passion and desire as unexpected encounters unfold in a seductive waterside setting. Immerse yourself in this erotic tale that promises to awaken your senses and spark your imagination.
This is a stand-alone story for the Literotica Summer Lovin’ 2024 contest.
____When the weather is fine then you know it’s a sign
For messing about on the river.
If you take my advice there’s nothing so nice
As messing about on the river. …
There are backwater places all hidden from view,
And quaint little islands just awaiting for you.
So I’ll leave you right now to cast off your bow,
Go messing about on the river.
(Song of the Inland Waterways, by Tony Hatch, sung by Josh McCrae)
____They’ve evolved from a one-night stand into friends with benefits. But they’re not interested in a relationship. No. Definitely not. Never…
____”You’ve never been to Cambridge before. OK, pedant! ‘Never, apart from that one conference, and that one time you visited me and it pissed it down the entire time’. So, what I was saying was, you’ve never done the proper tourist stuff?”
Emily looked at the guy whose bed she lay in. Long-haired scientist Richie was tall and lean, elegant, even, and naked. After four months, and them spending several days together on five occasions, he might have started to look like a boyfriend, except for his being repelled by any such idea. Richie was devoted to working hard and pursuing an academic career, and had little patience with anyone who didn’t support that. Or with anyone he regarded as an idiot, which was a large proportion of the population. He wasn’t good at hiding his lack of respect, either. ‘That arrogant ginger dickhead in Dan’s lab’ was a common description.
His boss Dan defended him. In his opinion, “There’s nothing wrong with Richie, apart from having the same tact level as the average brick being thrown through a window.”
Emily had met Richie when some male postdocs had talked over her in a conference bar; he’d pointed that out. Later, he’d told her she asked good questions, and offered to help her rewrite a paper, to give her a better chance of being published in a prestigious journal. Her conclusion was that his bark was worse than his bite.
He’d also casually mentioned that he wasonly coming to her room to look at her draft paper. ‘Unless you actually wanted to have sex,’ he’d added, off-hand.
It had set her mind running…
Emily had recently moved to a post in Montpellier, on the French Mediterranean. Looking for any relationship wasn’t anywhere near her priorities. Even a short-term fling would be hard, given how much she was working, and the difficulty of managing that when she was still awkward in the language. She was feeling the lack of human contact as she settled into her new life in France, where she could chat but not yet impress anyone in French. Realising that Richie was blunt enough to decline if he wanted, she’d eventually decided to tell him she might be interested in said sex.
She’d challenged him to impress her sexually. Emily had had more than enough of men who didn’t care if a woman found their sex satisfying! And Richie had managed to impress her, repeatedly, simply by actually being interested in her reactions.
She might feel slightly like an experimental subject, but when the experiment was ‘how to make her have a particularly good orgasm’, she’d happily live with that! Outside work, she’d learned he wasn’t arrogant at all. Quiet and self-effacing, even. He only spoke when he had something to say, which was rather restful compared to many of Emily’s colleagues.
“What ‘proper’ tourist stuff?” she asked. “We went to the Zoology Museum. And the Fitzwilliam. You pointed out all the historical bits as we went round the town centre. The Senate House Leap, King’s College Chapel, and all.”
“We didn’t do the Backs. Where college gardens back onto the river. A modern wonder of the world, they say. Especially if you see it from a punt.”
“Do you know how to punt?”
“Obviously,” Richie confirmed, competent as ever. “It’s not difficult – if you’re remotely sober! Shall we? There’s a college graduate one. It’s not as beat-up as the others.”
Two hours later, he held the shallow flat-bottomed wooden boat for Emily to step into. She lay down on a pile of plastic-coated cushions, her shoulders propped up on a 45-degree slope, facing the stern platform onto which Richie stepped. She squinted at Richie, silhouetted in the warm mid-June sun. Behind her, the narrow boat had space for six more passengers.
“Pass us the pole, love.”
Blinking at the unexpected endearment – just a figure of speech, for him – Emily lifted the long pole that was losing its varnish. He pushed the metal end into the water until half the pole was obscured, and they glided away from the bank of the crowded Mill Pond, where dozens of tourists inexpertly wobbled into or out of their hired punts, watched by a hundred more.
“Right. Let’s get out of here. North we go!”
“Why not the other way?” Emily queried, ever contrary. “Not as pretty?”
“Not in town, no. It gets well lovely as you head out past Fen Causeway, and towards Grantchester. Quiet. Willow trees over the water. Birds. But mainly because of the rollers. It’s ten feet higher, the Upper Cam. So you have to get out, and let the punt slide down this slope into the lower half of the river. No, they don’t let you be in it! We’d be dragging it up, if we wanted to go that way. So we’ll go the other way.” Richie pushed them away from two punts filled with shouting tourists, then let the pole act as a rudder, steering them back on course.
They passed under Silver Street – “Good pub there, I fell asleep on the lawn after Finals,” – and the Mathematical Bridge – “Story goes, it was assembled round Henry VIII’s time, with no nails or bolts at all, just all slots together.” Emily admired the structure of dozens of pieces of dark wood, fitting like a puzzle. “Allegedly, in Victorian times, or the Thirties, or the Seventies, they took it apart to see how it works, and couldn’t get it back together without all the metal rivets you see today. They say it’s bollocks, the bolts are just to strengthen it, but don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story. So yeah, that’s Queens’ College. Not The Queen’s college, one queen: that’s in Oxford. Don’t ask me who any of the queens were! Margaret Beaufort, maybe? Any question about Wars of the Roses, it’s always her. Or Margaret of Anjou. One of them. Oi, duck! Move it.”
A brown mallard sat in their path, unperturbed by the punters. Richie managed to point the punt so as to miss her by inches. “Got to be chilled about life, mallards. What with the males’ attitudes to fucking them, like it or not. You kind of hope they just don’t understand consent and shit, don’t you? Sorry, that’s depressing – potentially traumatised ducks! Anyway. That’s the back walls of St. Catharine’s. Small college, nice Ball each year. Had a giant ball pit, one time.” He quirked a lip, almost smiling. “You were only allowed in if you confirmed you were in no danger of puking – or worse – into the balls, and would pay £100 if you did. I think they survived until nearly the Survivors Photo. That’s at six a.m.”