This is the fourth installment of my John and Sarah series. As with the others, it can be read as a standalone story, but it does make a bit more sense if you read the other three in order (The Party, The Hotel, then The Beginning).
I will tip my hat again to shorterversion for all her help with sorting the story out and helping suggest ways to improve the text.
Feedback is always welcomed, and thanks for reading!
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John hadn't really thought that much about Sarah until an old schoolfriend's get together 5 years after they had left school. It had been arranged that they all meet up in a local pub, and about 10 of the old 'crew' had turned up. Amongst them was Sarah, and although they had exchanged pleasantries, they didn't really chat.
Throughout the evening, John kept glancing at Sarah and, every time he looked up, he caught her looking back at him and they both turned away, slightly embarrassed. As the evening wore on and numbers started to dwindle, John (given a little more confidence due to the beer or two he'd had), found Sarah alone and walked over to see what she'd been up to during the intervening years.
"Hi!" He smiled, thinking he was sure he could have come up with a more convincing opener.
"John? Well hello stranger! I thought you were never going to talk to me," Sarah replied, a comedic pout passing her lips.
"I was going to talk to you, I just hadn't had the right opportunity," John said unconvincingly. "Can I get you a drink?"
"Now you're talking! I'll have a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, seeing as you're offering."
John walked over to the bar and ordered a couple of glasses of wine and then nodded to some empty chairs. Sarah followed John's eyeline and, spotting the chairs, acknowledged with a nod, then headed over to sit down. John joined her and then handed her a glass before sitting down himself.
After a slightly awkward pause, John asked Sarah what she'd been up to in the intervening years, and Sarah started by telling him about her uni years. After 5 minutes, the conversation started to flow easily, and they talked away as if time hadn't separated them. There was laughter and the occasional intake of breath as both recounted some of the highs and lows of their lives.
An hour and a couple of glasses of wine later, John countered, "Do you remember that summer before uni? We had a pretty wild couple of weeks, I seem to recall!"
"I certainly do! One or two memories popped, rather inconveniently, into my head when I spotted you at the beginning of the evening," Sarah replied with a raised eyebrow.
"Oh, I'm inconvenient, am I?" John laughed.
"Not you technically, no. However, I was talking to Dave at the time, and I remembered what you'd said about him in the pub on the night we, erm, you, I mean..." Sarah flushed and looked anywhere but at John.
John snorted with laughter. "I'd forgotten about that! He's a respected man these days, studying law and all that. That appendage of his got him more than his fair share of trouble at Oxford, if you believe his stories, that is!"
Sarah looked up at John, her cheeks still red. "One thing I did wonder though..." She paused and searched the ceiling as if she might find the right words there. "I've always wondered, actually. With all the things we did that summer, why did we never have, you know, actual sex?"
John looked puzzled. "I thought we did. Are you sure we didn't?"
Sarah gave him a look. "No! We did not! A woman remembers these things, but for the life of me I can't remember why we didn't!"
John racked his brain, bringing back forgotten memories of their naked bodies entwined, but Sarah was right and there was no recollection of them actually 'doing it'.
He shrugged. "I don't know why," he offered. "I was sure we had, but now I think about it, I realise not. I think we were having too much fun with everything else!" A rather vivid memory passed across his mind of how it all started, and now it was John's turn to blush.
"You'd have been my first," Sarah said, so quietly that John hardly heard her.
"I thought you were my first!" John laughed, and immediately regretted it when he saw the look Sarah was giving him.
"With a remark like that, I should spank you!" An edge of anger in her voice, Sarah fixed John a stare that would freeze fire, before she smiled and said, "But you'd like that too much, you pervert!" With that they both laughed, a little too loudly. Sarah pointed at John's glass. "One more for the road?" she asked.
"If you're offering," John said, handing his glass to Sarah.
She stood and headed to the bar. John's eyes followed her as she did. Her hair was darker and shorter than when he last saw Sarah, but little else had changed. Her jeans fit well, showing the curves of her legs and arse wonderfully, and the plain white t-shirt she wore, whilst baggy, suited her perfectly. John felt a twitch in his pants as more memories of them together came back in to focus.
He was so lost in thought that he didn't notice Sarah sit back down and place their drinks on the table. "Earth to John"--Sarah waved a hand in front of his face--"are you still with us?"
"Sorry. I was lost in thought," John said, almost absentmindedly.
"Ooh! Do tell!" Sarah perked up.
John paused for a moment, struggling whether to actually say what he was thinking or just make something up on the spot. In the end, honesty won out. "I was wondering what it would be like if we actually had gone all the way back then and had sex." He blushed again as Sarah's eyes widened. He'd overstepped the mark, or so he thought.
Sarah lowered her voice to an almost conspiratorial whisper. "I've wondered the same thing too. If I'm honest, I've thought about it more than once." She looked him in the eyes as she continued. "I mean, we did a lot of stuff, and it would have been logical that we should have. I just wonder what it would have been like. We knew each other's bodies so well, I think it would have been good, you know?"
John did indeed think it would have been good, and an idea popped into his head.
