Mateship With Birds - By Carrie Tiffany Page 0,42

is met with a degree of agreeability on behalf of the breast owner. I would not be surprised if some candid female admitted to self-manipulation of her own breasts for pleasure. Further to this, I would not be surprised at the ‘innocent’ mutual manipulation of breasts between females who are flowering or even sexually mature. If you pick up anything on this, Michael, let me know.

Harry felt his first female nipple at the age of sixteen. It belonged to Mary Bird, mother of Noreen Bird now at the counter at the co-op. They were petting on the edge of the creek in the shade of a strip of old tea-trees overrun with ants. Mary sat with her knees pulled up to her chest; he was cross-legged next to her. He couldn’t really get at her like this, with her all folded up on herself. He had one arm around her shoulders as they kissed and would, every now and then, exert a bit of pressure on her upper body to try and tip her backwards. The bottle of Colgate Dactylis he’d bought for her bulged in his pocket. She was a chewy kisser, well salivated. When she broke off a string of spittle hung for a second between their mouths. She stood up and put her hands on her hips. She looked huge standing above him, her blouse billowing out from the waistband of her skirt. He saw her legs in close-up, shaved below, but the knees covered in spiked yellow hairs. She frowned down at the place she’d been sitting and used her foot to sweep the twigs and leaves away, then she gathered her skirt between her legs and lay down beside him. ‘It’s your job to watch for bull ants – alright?’ she said, and untucked her blouse. Harry kissed her again. He threaded his hand through her clothes until it rested on the skin of her belly. Her skin was saturated with a fat even heat. The word pelt came into his mind. A digestive movement burbled inside her and he pulled back in surprise. She retrieved his hand and moved it higher up. He felt himself stiffening, the blood running heavily into his cock, drawing it out like an anchor pulling though water. He started to move his thumb. Slowly he stroked and gathered in the flesh and delivered it back to his fingers. She lifted her hand to brush a fly away from her mouth and then returned it to her side. He stroked and smoothed. Mary started humming. ‘Harry.’

‘Yes?’

‘If you’re looking for a tit, it’s higher up.’

Mary was a strawberry blonde with a frizzy bob, thick arms and legs, and a firm, strong torso. She wasn’t a stick. Harry had been working at her ribcage – the inflation between waist and chest. He walked his fingers higher up her chest, pushing under her bra. The breast had a disappointing flatness, the tissue settled deeply against the chest in the way of a liquid seeking the lowest point. And it was so inert, so without the bouncy sway he found hypnotic when she walked, or ran. He spread his fingers and felt the ringed flesh of areola and then the first pebbling of nipple. She moaned a little. He cleared his throat. He was grinning now, and feeling immensely proud – even if the initial geography was askew. He traced the circle of areola with his index finger and dragged his thumb gently across the middle where it struck the growing nipple so naturally, as if it couldn’t be avoided, again and again.

Dora follows Noreen Bird and Edie Plimeroll up the wooden steps to the hall. Noreen wears a yellow dress with a matching knitted shrug. She’s walking in an exaggerated bouncy fashion which causes her corsage to fall off and slip through the steps into a puddle below. The purple flower topples softly into the dirty water. Noreen looks down between the steps at the puddle, then up at Edie, and shrieks, ‘Edie, Edie, Edie.’

Edie Plimeroll picks her way down the steps and around to the side railing where she stands with her hands on her hips looking at the flower listing sideways in the water.

‘Oh God, Nor. It’s ruined. You’ll have to go home.’

Noreen’s standing beside her now. She nudges the flower over to the edge of the puddle with her shoe, bends down and picks it up.

‘Bugger that. Des is getting his tongue in tonight or I’ll kill myself.’

She shakes the