Bad Penny

Lucy had been living with us for three weeks when I found her one afternoon crying in the University Library. It was up on the eleventh floor, where we had arranged to meet. It was always quiet up there, and the view was great. Penny and I had occasionally been quite adventurously intimate between the stacks, but that wasn't the intention in our arrangement to meet that day. As far as I expected she was simply studying there, and I was dropping by after a lecture, probably to then go for a coffee.

The tears were because of Naimh. Lucy's love life was complicated. She and Naimh had been lovers since they were at school. They had both had various boyfriends and sometimes shared and swapped. Her moving in with Penny and me had changed the dynamic a little. Naimh and her boyfriend had joined in various swinging parties with all of us in the past, and the previous weekend we had all been together at Mike and Tara's, and I had thought that things were all pretty well balanced.

It turned out that Lucy had met up with Naimh at lunch, and sneaked off to a quiet corner to share a kiss. Naimh had broken off the embrace after a moment and said "What's wrong?"

She said the kiss hadn't felt right, that Lucy was holding back. And Lucy agreed. For the first time she found herself not responding to her friend. Not wanting it to go any further. Not being attracted to her.

They didn't row. It wasn't an argument. They hugged and cried together. They told each other they loved each other, and went their separate ways. And Lucy spent the rest of the afternoon in tears until I turned up.

I comforted her, and we made our way home, she burst into tears with Penny again later. I lay in bed that night with Lucy on one side and Penny on the other, and hugged them both as they both sobbed, and kissed. And suddenly they flared. Passion rose. Their kisses grew deeper, less sisterly, and hands began to caress rather than clasp in comfort.

Penny moved across my body, slipping into Lucy's arms, legs entwining, hands caressing. I shuffled across to the warm spot that Penny had vacated, giving them room, observing them. They were beautiful. Brunette on blond, honey and milk, black cherry and red.

I watched them make love. I didn't interfere, I didn't intrude. This was their moment, and I was privileged to be a witness. They were calm and gentle and strong and relentless and caring. And they came, and sighed and came again and collided in kisses and hair and legs and fingers, tongues and nipples and shared smiles of sleepy contentment.

They slept in each other's arms, and I did not feel lonely as I drifted off to sleep beside them, seeing Lucy's delicate pale fingers on Penny's tanned thigh.

Another fortnight passed, and suddenly the exams were over. The sun was out. We were exhausted but elated, and all we had to do was wait for the results that would change our lives. So we partied.

Wild drunken dancing on the beach at Murlough, with a bonfire on Midsummer night, clothing optional. Sex on a sand dune is not recommended. Gritty. Unpleasant. Don't bother trying it. Lucy was out if action for a week after.

Wilder dancing in a garden off Adelaide Park, clothing mostly on but this time fuelled with smoke rather than drink. A strange, stoned, orgy took place in a small boxroom off the landing that evening, when a dozen people crowded in, semi-naked, and rubbed against each other, turning to the person beside them each time a voice called "Swap!"

A weekend in our house, with Tara, Mike, Naimh and Alan and a newcomer couple, introduced by Tara of course, called Oonagh and Brendan. We were joined, unexpectedly, by Tilly.

Tilly was supposed to be away for the weekend, which was why we had decided to host the party, but arrived back at our house at about half past nine on the Friday night, just as we were all finishing dessert. She came in looking cross and explained her trip to Dublin had been cancelled because her friend had a tummy bug. Penny instantly offered her chocolate mousse and a brandy. Tilly perked up.

A seat was arranged, and Penny brought the dessert over to her, bending low to kiss Tilly's cheek as she reached round her to place the bowl on the table. She whispered "You are very welcome," as she did so.

At the time I didn't think much of the gesture. Penny was always affectionate, and Tilly had joined us, Lucy, Penny and I, several times in the last couple of months for various games. Many of them involving ropes.

That weekend Tilly's skill with decorative knots and patterns of bindings was in demand. Penny seemed to wear almost nothing but coloured cords in various combinations and patterns. Sometimes they restricted her movements or blocked access to her most intimate areas, others emphasised and drew the attention to the exposed flesh. On Sunday evening I walked into the living room to see Penny spread legged, her pussy shaved and open, red cords holding her legs wide and arms behind her, a knotted gag in her mouth.

Tara was caressing Penny's nipples, which pointed straight out, her breasts squeezed by the rope. Tilly was just putting away her shaving gear.

I wasn't keen on the shaven look. It was unnatural, unwomanly, prepubescent, not sexy. But it was also startling, and somehow enhanced her vulnerability. She was exposed and helpless.

I watched in wonder as Tilly brought Oonagh forward. I hadn't spotted her, I was so struck by Penny's condition. Oonagh was also roped up, arms behind her, legs tied together by a decorative arrangement at her knees. Tilly had to help her to walk across, to kneel, to lean forward so her face was pressed against Penny's open sex.

"Lick her. Make her come," Tilly commanded.

I watched as Oonagh tried to do as she was told, and Tilly walked around behind Penny to squeeze and play with the brown nipples I so loved to suck, darkened and hardened by the blood squeezed into them by the restricting ropes and Tara's gentle teasing.

Tilly saw me then, watching. She smiled. She smiled more broadly when Penny gasped and her head was thrown back, and she raised her lips to suck on Tilly's own nipple. "Her Mistress's Nipple" was the phrase that flashed through my mind.

Tara had also seen me, but when Tilly displaced her she had gone to kneel beside Oonagh, and to caress her bottom and thighs.

Oonagh's knee bonds had a knot with several wrappings around it between her knees, so they were held a few inches apart. Tara had access between the bound girl's thighs, and when she pulled on both buttocks she exposed Oonagh's unshaven pussy lips to my view.

Tara looked up at me with a saucy, enquiring and daring smile. She looked at my now erect cock and nodded at Oonagh's available and inviting slit.

It was a matter of three strides before Tara's out-reached hand took my cock. She lunged forward to suck me, and lick around the head, pulling my foreskin back, coating me with her saliva, wetting me to ease my entry to Oonagh's body.

Tara guided me down, as I straddled the pale bottom of the kneeling girl, and felt the tip of my cock contact her pussy lips. I held back as Tara rubbed my cock up and down, opening up Oonagh. I had not entered her before. She had joined in with her partner, naked and making love, and had played with the girls, sharing them with Brendan, but only Alan had been allowed to take her, although she had sucked on Mike and on my cock the night before.

I pushed into her, and she gasped. She did not know who it was that plunged so deep inside her, whose cock was invading her, pushing her open, filling her body, dragging pleasure from her depths. She bucked and wriggled, and for a moment I thought I had done the wrong thing, that she objected, that this was rape. My mind flashed to the night that Penny had been gang banged, men taking her one after the other, no notion of consent.

Then I felt Oonagh thrust backagainst me and heard her muffled cry "Oh God, oh God, oh yes, oh make me come!"

I did my best.

As Tara fingered Penny and brought her to climax, a shafted Oonagh hard and deep, holding her up by her bound arms so she could still lick Penny when she had the breath to spare. She came, her body squeezing my shaft, and her legs flexing uncontrolled. She fell forward, head under the chair on which Penny sat, and I pushed in deep and hard, my mouth now on the smooth bare flesh of my girlfriend's pussy, tasting her come as I pumped mine into Oonagh.

I was lying on the floor, getting my breath back, when I looked up to see that Tara had rolled Oonagh onto her back and was sixty-nining her, trying with difficulty to get between her bound thighs to lick my come from the stunned girl's slit. Above them Tilly was kissing Penny. It was gentle, loving, passionate, a post orgasmic kiss of depth and meaning. It was beautiful. I was filled with jealousy, and sudden, dreadful, cold certainty.

Penny and Tilly were lovers. Something had happened there while I had been distracted by Lucy. Penny was no longer mine.

The summer wore on and I came to accept things as they were. Penny sometimes went to sleep with Tilly, sometimes with Lucy and me, sometimes Tilly joined us. There were more parties at our house, now Tilly was part of the group. Mike's uncle Peter visited, and was overwhelmed by Penny, Lucy and Tara one evening.

It was, quite frankly, a hell of a lot of fun.

Then our results came out. Tilly got her MA, Penny got a 2.1, I scraped a First. I was offered a place on a research programme, Penny was accepted for Teacher training college.

The future seemed planned. Lucy would not graduate for another year, but she and Penny and I would keep the house, while Tilly was going back to England.

The day of her departure approached. Penny became more and more unhappy. Withdrawn.

Two weeks before Tilly was supposed to go I came home to find Penny transformed.

She was in the kitchen, naked,, apart from a strange knotted cord bikini. She was bending down to take something out of a cupboard when I came into the room, and presenting me with a very nice view of her bottom, and a glimpse of her shaven pussy. Tilly liked to keep her bare.

It was a shock when she stood up and I saw that her beautiful brunette tresses had gone. Her head was shaven as clean as the rest of her body.

It took me a moment to spot the ring through her right nipple, another in her navel, and a large plaster covering an area just above her mons.

I was speechless. Penny said "Oh Hello," and put the pot down on the table. She struck a pose and said "Do you like my new look?"

All I could say was "Your hair!"

She giggled and ran her hand across her bald head. "Yes, wild isn't it? It feels weird. Nice though."

It had been Tilly's idea. She came in wearing the same haircut, although since she was dressed I did not know about any piercings.

I'm not sure why there was not a row. I was too shocked I suppose.

I saw the tattoo a week later. It was a daisy, with an odd number of petals.

Tilly kept shaving Penny's head, and I presumed all her other parts, but let her own hair grow back. The two girls were exclusively in each other's company now, and Lucy and I were both a little hurt and confused. But on the last night before Tilly was due to leave Penny and Tilly made a dinner, with lots of wine, and Tilly made advances on Lucy while Penny went for me.

It was strange, making love to a girl with no hair. She looked unlike herself. She was unlike herself. A bald, pierced, tattooed freak, muscled and skinny from hours in the gym, who sucked me hard and kissed me fiercely and told me to only fuck her in the ass, because Tilly, who for the first time she named as her Mistress, didn't like the taste of man come in her cunt.

It was exciting, exotic, an experience I shall never forget. But it was strangely heart wrenching. I hardly recognised her. She was no longer Penny. I knew she had become this person because of choices I had made; it was a path that I had helped to guide her onto.

And I remembered, as I kissed her, my eyes closed, and smelt that warm spice and vanilla smell, and felt her lips, as familiar as ever, the best kisses I ever knew, I remembered why I loved her. It filled me with hope. And I knew that tomorrow Tilly would be gone, and I could help Penny come back, reclaim her, help her find herself again.

I took Tilly to the airport the next day. All of us went. Lucy sat in the front with me, Penny in the back with her lover, silent, tense, soon to be parted.

We got to the front of the airport and I lifted Tilly's case from the boot, and put it on the trolly. Tilly was already kissing Lucy on the cheek, goodbye. She turned and stepped over to me and extended her hand. It struck me as strangely formal, given that I had been licking her pussy the night before. But she shook my hand firmly and said "Good luck with the PhD," and turned away, taking the trolley. As she passed Penny, who was speaking with Lucy, she said simply "Five minutes"

I saw Penny stiffen and she turned to me.

"Well, Sean. I guess it is time."

I stood, uncomprehending. But I heard and remember every word.

"I want to say, I do still love you. I always will. And I will always be grateful to you for your love, and all you have taught me, and let me find out. You are a very special man. And I hope you and Lucy have every happiness together. I know she loves you, and you love her, and that is why I don't feel sad. But I have to follow my heart. And that is with Tilly. So I am going now. With her. And I won't be back."

I have heard of people being dumbstruck. I never knew what it meant until that moment. I was frozen on the spot. She reached out her hand and touched my cheek, and for a moment her smile was so sad I nearly collapsed, but in a rush she stepped forward, kissed me so softly, so quickly, that I almost thought it wasn't real, and then, she was gone. Turning, fleeing, away into the terminal.

Lucy appeared before me. Tears in her eyes. She grabbed me and said "Can't you stop her?"

I watched as Penny went through the inner doors of the entrance hall, and fell into Tilly's embrace.

I clutched Lucy to me, and hugged her as tightly as Penny was hugging her girlfriend. I didn't even have the breath to say the words that were in my head. 'No. I can't stop her. All I can do is let her go.'

It was the 28th of August, 1988.

She disappeared. She cut herself off from her family and in all the years since she never called or wrote or returned to Belfast. I looked online when it became available, searched the census, Google, asked old friends. Nothing.

Lucy went to America to do her post grad work, I got a scholarship to Australia the same year. It seemed like fate. We parted as friends. We still exchange Christmas cards.

Mike and Tara moved to England two years later. He was killed in a car crash, drunk and stoned, never knew what hit him, not even thirty. Tara stopped swinging, settled down, married and has three kids. And a lot of pets. I follow her Facebook posts, with a certain amount of disbelief.

Naimh and Alan divorced after ten years. Shauna went to New Zealand and married a civil engineer, and called her second daughter Penelope. Uncle Peter went back to Hong Kong. He still lives there. Liz married a Scottish software engineer who became a senior manager in a major bank. I am not in touch with any of them.

I met Ruth, we fell in love, married and after twenty years are still the best of friends.

But I think of Penny often, and wonder how she is, if she is even still alive. And I hope that someday she will turn up.