TinaIt was a little after four-thirty when I woke up. I was so comfortable, lying on top of Luke. He still had an arm around me and was holding my hand from earlier, even though he was asleep. Resting my chin on my hand on his chest and watching him, he had a little smile on his face and was at peace. I looked at the new scratches and the bruise I had given him and wondered what had come over me this weekend. It was less than a week ago we were still playing silly buggers and being too nervous to move our relationship forward.Exactly a week ago we had our first date, that ended in a tentative, but charged kiss. Before that just getting to know him better was all wishful thinking. I was not sure if I was interested in sex. Here I was now acting like some sexual animal, scratching and biting him in the throes of some of the best feelings I have had.While I was thinking of the what, the question of why jumped at me. I think the answer lay in how I was feeling now, it was that same feeling I had since entering the house on Friday night. The way they all joked with me, how they had taken both me and Diane under their wings, made me feel so welcome. There was also an unspoken message that said if you need us, we are here. I saw that when Matt and Andy had sat with me at the club last week. I also saw it in how they treated Cara and Rachel. There was no snide comment about Matt and Rachel not playing last night, nothing even about them staying and watching. When Cara was naked, of course people looked, we all did. We all looked at Rob too, but there was no lecherous staring or smutty comments. Finally, when Luke had saved my embarrassment, there was no ill feeling from anyone. Rob was even active in the charade that was played out and happily showed me what Luke had done.I had been looked after, respected and made to feel safe. After the summer I had been hurting so badly. Idiot was a charmer, he was handsome, outwardly he had lots going for him. Then I discovered what he was really like. Luke was pretty much the opposite; he had no suave charm. Luke’s charm was just from a kind heart. Until you saw him let go with his friends and that damned smile spread across his face, you wouldn’t have called him handsome, rugged or battered would be better descriptions. He was shorter than Idiot and with his clothes on looked like he would be fatter. He had a gentle voice when he spoke to people in general yet spoke with authority and confidence when he had to.All this was very nice and very positive, but the greatest thing about him was how he loved his friends and they loved him. Diane’s words came back to me about taming the beast. I knew I never could and would never want to. It was the fire that drove his passion. To tame him, would be to kill the man that he was. I had already seen a brief look at the man that was left when the flame flickered and I would do everything in my power to stop it going out. She had been so right after that first rugby match; I loved the big oaf.Leaning down and kissing him, I whispered, “Luke, Luke baby, I think you should wake up.” LukeI opened my eyes upon a countenance divine, “Tell me I’ve died and you are the angel sent to greet me.”Tina kissed my nose, “Come on, sweetie we can’t spend all afternoon in here.”“Says who?”“Both of us! I have to get back to halls and kocaeli escort you were going to explain something to me.”“Five more minutes, mum.”Tina pushed herself up off my chest, “Eww, actually, no code this time, back in a minute.” Grabbing my dressing gown off the door, someone felt really at home, I smiled as she disappeared.As I sat and swung my legs out of bed, I realised what she meant, everything was getting a bit dry. While she was washing, I got some clothes out and another pair of boxers for her, which I threw at her when she came back in.“Catch.”“What? What are these for?”“I know they will drown you, but they are clean and better than nothing. Well, when I say better, I don’t actually mean better. Of course, nothing is better than nothing.”She threw them back, “I’m good, your shirt covers enough and I can put my jeans on to go back to halls in.”Tina had made us both a coffee while I cleaned up and put on my jeans. I must visit Brighton and grab one of the ‘Clothing Optional Beyond This Point’ signs to put in the entrance hall. I sat on the sofa with my drink on the arm and my arm around this wonderful person I was learning about. Tina was leaning on me, cradling her cup, with her feet curled up behind her in the way that only women can.“Comfortable?”“Uhuh.” I pressed play on the remote control and the video lit up the screen. TinaAbout ninety minutes later, after plenty of foot tapping and Luke singing along and reciting most of the dialogue. I wasn’t sure what to think. The antics they got up to in the clubhouse was one thing, but this was a different kettle of fish. The club was spontaneous, this was a video he kept in his room. All said, it was catchy and I was tapping my foot along too.“Well?” Luke said as he started rewinding the tape.“It was… different.”“Diane likes this too?”I shrugged, “You know as much as me. I had no idea what she was going on about this morning. And the others all like it too?”Luke looked into his lap for a second before looking at me with a grin, “I’m sort of guilty for that. I brainwashed them and I’ll do the same to you if you’ll let me.”“Let’s park that one.” The truth was it was weird but no worse than I’d seen over the last couple of months. Okay, maybe that wasn’t quite accurate, it was totally different to anything I had seen, but it was fully on the spectrum of what I’d experienced since the term started. Diane liked it, that was evident from her reaction, Luke and his friends did too, at the very worst I could tolerate it.“Fair enough, brainwashing is a slow process,” he laughed. Waving his fingers around my head he continued, “Little by little I’ll draw you into my web. Welcome to my parlour said the spider to the fly.”I let his misquote of one of my secret pleasures drop and replied,“Oh, no, no! said the little Fly; to ask me is in vain:For who goes up that winding stair shall never come down again.” LukeI couldn’t believe it, one of the first poems I knew by heart and Tina was quoting it to me.“Dear friend, what can I do,To prove the warm affection I have ever felt for you?”I put my finger under her chin and closed her mouth,“The trouble Miss Croft,Was Spider the girl and Fly the boy?I am ensconced in your web,You’ve filled my heart with joy”She jumped around kissed me hard on the lips, hugging me closely.“Now, I kocaeli escort bayan do believe you have a friend waiting for you.”“But…” I put a finger on her lips.“Two things. First and most important, do not ever drop your friends for me, especially those that have been in your life longer than me. If this all crashes and burns, we will both need them more than ever.” Tina looked sad but was nodding.“Second, the sooner we get you back, the sooner we can start dreaming of the next time we spend time together.”She put and hand on my cheek and kissed the bruise, “Can we walk?”“You trying to stretch out time?”“Bloody right I am!”I returned her kiss, “Works for me.”It was about two miles to her halls. We were both young and pretty fit. If we pushed it, we could jog there in a little over ten minutes. We somehow dragged it out to an hour.“How do you know The Spider and the Fly?” Tina asked.“How or why?“How? I read and re-read it, recited it line by line until I got it, just the same as Eskimo Nell.“Why? I just love rhymes and poems. I can’t sing for shite, but I do like the beat. My dad introduced me to a book called Verse and Worse when I was a kid. It was full of nonsense poems. Spider and the Fly was one of the first proper poems I learnt in my early teens. Then I discovered rugby songs and the rest is history.”“You do know you’re wrong though? The spider was male trying to seduce the lady fly.”“Oh, dear, did you not study biology? Male spiders are generally eaten by the female after doing their duty, it only stands to reason the spider so cunning and seductive is a woman.”We talked back and forth for about ten minutes, stopping often to argue points, before calling a truce and agreeing that without Mary Howitt’s original, we wouldn’t know and it didn’t change the morals and observations.“I bet I can guess your favourite poem.”I let go of her hand and put it on the crook of my arm, “Go on then,” I challenged.“From what I know of you and how I’ve seen you act and react, ‘If’ by Kipling.”“It’s a great poem and a favourite, but I doubt you would ever guess correct, Sick Leave by Siegfried Sassoon”“Yes, no, I would never have guessed. I’ve not even heard of him.” And so, we talked and laughed all the way back to the halls. Tina had done some war poems at school but didn’t like them as she found them quite depressing.We kissed outside Diane’s door, “Don’t forget to ask her. Lunch tomorrow?”“Yes, though the study group is getting together for the last time this term in the evening.”I banged on Diane’s door, “We’ll stand here all night if I didn’t.”“Ahem, you have a room over there, baby girl,” Diane said, interrupting our last kiss.“See you tomorrow, hi Di…ane,” sticking my tongue out to Diane, I brushed Tina’s cheek, winked, turned and left.As I stepped out into the fresh air, I thought I had lost a limb. I had had a great weekend, make that the best weekend. I should be fulfilled, satisfied, but instead, there was something missing. I needed some time to think about all that had happened. I walked down to the seafront and got some fish and chips and went and sat on the dock. This time of the evening the ships were rolling in, very few tourists were about this time of year. It was peaceful sitting just wasting my time and mulling things over.I was always comfortable izmit escort with my teammates and in the house. I don’t ever remember being this comfortable with a girl. Tina had just slipped into my life, as if she had a non-stick coating. Other girls I had had any type of relationship with, some drinks at the club or several dates and a roll in the hay, there was some sort of friction. One got the arse because I got naked after first seeing me, naked. Another got the arse because Cara lost at poker as usual and I looked at her tits, they are nice tits. Distracted, again. None had ever given any of the guys any lip but seemed to rub them up the wrong way. It was easy to see why we would rub a partner up the wrong way. Yet Tina, the quietest of any I had been with, gave as good as she got. They seemed to accept her and Diane like they were meant to be there.I got up and put my papers in the bin. Smiling I headed for home. Yes, it was good to have Tina in my life. Tina“I hope the sex was memorable because I promise I will hurt him!”Diane laughed as she pulled me into her room. We gathered some ingredients and headed along to the kitchenette. I threw together a quick and dirty, chicken and rice dish.“How was your afternoon?”“Fine, Rob dropped me off here then headed off to meet up with some guys from his course to get some project work done. I came back and did some studying for my tests next week.“How was yours? I’m guessing you and Luke didn’t do much course work.”“Well, we did do some work with numbers.”I gave her a brief outline of my afternoon. She stopped me almost straight away, “And he trusted you?”I nodded and carried on, “Wow! Where’s Tina? What have you done with my baby girl?”“Don’t ask because I don’t know!”Anyway, it’s silly, just the simple things like after we woke up and sat on the sofa, my shoulder just seemed to fit into his armpit. Does that sound daft? With some things, like when I showed him the blood I had drawn, he was almost blasé, with others he looks like he would take on the world. Then this afternoon, you will never believe what I found out.”It was a strange look on Diane’s face, she must have known I was excited, but within our shared joy there was a curiosity that bordered on worry, “Go on.”“He likes poetry. It sort of makes sense when he explained it, but not only did he quote some,” I hesitated feeling a little shy, for some reason, this felt worse than if I was telling Diane about the intimate details of our lovemaking. “He also took a little bit and weaved it into a verse about us.”“He is so like Rob and yet so different. Rob, what you see is what you get, he’ll fight for his friends to his last and love with all his might and then some, but life is simple. It’s made for living not analysing. Luke seems to have layers upon layers. It was these layers that slowed him down to start. I bet he would never volunteer to me that he likes poetry, I wonder if Rob knows. I think you’ve got under his skin, baby girl and he’s getting under yours.”“I think you’re right. I think I want to go up that winding stair, never to come down again.”Diane pulled me into a hug, “Promise me something, honey?”“Of course.”“Two somethings actually, I want an invite to the wedding and don’t ever forget me.”I hugged her then told her what Luke had said about friends. I then felt tears on my cheek.“Tell me?”“I suddenly got scared. What if I do need you, you know, like Luke said, if this all falls apart?” She hugged me back and kissed me, “Then I promise I will be there for you. Though it’s a promise I don’t think I will have to keep.”