Him...

Terry Pratchett has been one of my favourite authors since my childhood. I remember my Mama reading me the Nomes trilogy when I was eight years old. Then, at the school library, I discovered his Discworld novels, and I was hooked. Shortly after his death in 2015, I remember queueing up outside Waterstones to buy the very last Discworld novel. A few months ago, The Ultimate Discworld Companion was advertised, a sort of encyclopaedia of the characters and stories, due for publication in mid-November; I pre-ordered it immediately. My relationship with Terry Pratchett has lasted thirteen years.

My relationship with the guy downstairs lasted for a year. We had fun. He was ten years older than me; but he was experienced and he knew precisely how to please me, with his tongue and his fingers and his cock. Before I met him, I’d never been able to orgasm from penetration alone – I’d always needed clitoral stimulation or, occasionally, at just the right point in my menstrual cycle, for my nipples to be teased and licked – but I remember one morning in his bed, hearing heavy rain crashing against the windows in sheets like ocean waves, feeling his cool fingers parting my labia and his hot cock slowly, insanely slowly, entering me; feeling his full length and girth inside me, entering and withdrawing, again and again, at a glacial pace, for what could have been hours; feeling him jerk and spasm and grunt, and then somehow bring me a shuddering slow-motion, toe-curling release like I’d never experienced before.

He turned me on with stories of his ex-girlfriends, and re-enacted his experiences with them. He told me about Krissy who had red hair and green eyes and wide-set bell-shaped breasts; she’d remove her underwear, revealing a flame of pubic hair, pull her panties over his head like a blindfold, then squeeze his cock between her breasts and let him grind against her until he came. (My breasts are too small for us to have re-enacted this faithfully, but he’d love to have my warm, wet panties pressed to his face when he masturbated.) He told me about Tracy who had a Celtic-style tattoo above her shaved mons which he would trace with his tongue before going down on her. (He shaved me, massaged moisturiser  lovingly into the folds of my labia, and then painted a henna design millimetres above my clit before he encouraged a gushing orgasm from me using only his mouth.)

He showed me pictures of his former lovers. He’d scroll through the photos on his iPad and watch me as I masturbated to them. I saw Krissy’s fiery bush and Tracy’s tattooed pussy. There was a photo of Jessica bending over in the shower, covered in soap, water running down her butt and trickling from her long, puckered labia. I saw Izzy, her long-long blonde hair brushed forward over her shoulders and almost obscuring her delicate baby pink nipples, whilst she spread her tiny tight slit apart with the fingers of her left hand and lifted her clitoral hood with the forefinger of her right, revealing herself so utterly to the camera (and, unknowingly, to me) with a shy half-smile that made me come so violently and so severely that I was left convulsing and breathless.

He would watch me so closely as I masturbated to those pictures. He’d examine me, press his face between my legs so he could see my wetness developing, could see my fingers tapping and circling my clit, could see my cunt and butt pulse and tremble on the brink of orgasm; and so he could fondle my swollen lips as I gradually descended, gradually deflated.

He’d ask me if he could take my picture and I’d refuse.

It wasn’t all sex and masturbation. We’d read together. He would read me Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, putting on different voices for each of the characters. We’d go for long walks in the dusk, visit wine bars or paddle in the moonlit sea or consume fish and chips and curry sauce and olives and chocolate whisky. But there was sex, and masturbation, and fondling and kissing and licking and tasting too. When face masks were compulsory during Covid, he took every opportunity to slip his mask inside my panties and rub it between my labia so he could smell me when he wore it.

We lived in the same apartment block. (We still do. My flat is at the top floor and his is on the ground floor, so I walk past his door every morning on the way to work, or to the shops, or just to escape into the outside world.) Although we lived so close, we maintained our separate living spaces. If I was working from home, I'd stay in my flat and only visit him at lunchtime or in the evenings. We'd see each other most weekends; I’d run down the stairwell in my night dress or my underwear at 6am on a Saturday morning, let myself in, and try to sneak into his bed whilst he was still sleeping – but he'd always be waiting for me, and I’d only return to my own flat if I needed to get dressed (which wasn't often, not for whole weekends at a time).

Some weekends he would go away, ostensibly to visit his parents or friends, though now I know better.

I felt guilty, naughty, dark, looking at his photos of past lovers. I knew it as wrong to enjoy myself at their expense, those girls never knowing that they'd be shown to me as masturbatory material. He knew I felt this way, but he knew I got off on it. Sometimes, if I wasn’t in the mood for sex, he’d tempt me with pictures I’d not seen before. “I’ve found some more pictures of Jessica on my old hard drive, the girl with the big pussy lips. Wanna see?” or “Ali – she’s a Turkish girl I went out with a couple of summers ago. She had these firm little tits with long dark nipples, and the absolute softest, curliest minge you could bury your face in,” or “Hale and Rebekah, cute German twins who I shared a house with when I was at uni. They were identical, except for a mole on Hale’s neck, the slight sag of Rebekah’s boobs, and the size of their swollen pussies when they were aroused.” And, always, with only the slightest hesitation, I’d say yes, show me; show me your old flames, captured in their most intimate moments; show me their naked bodies, the graphic details of their breasts and vulvas; tell me your stories of what turned them on and made them wet and what you did together; and let us relive those experiences, or let me touch myself in front of you.

And no, no, again no, you can’t take pictures of me. (I’m so incredibly glad I stuck to that. I dread to think what he’d have done with pictures of me, who he may have shown them to.)

Ten days ago, Terry Pratchett saved me.

My boyfriend had been away for the weekend. After work on the Monday evening, upon his return, he invited me down to his flat for dinner. I was on my period so I didn’t want sex, but he asked me to masturbate for him. Out came his iPad with photos to entice me. Although I don’t remember the girl’s name, I can’t forget the picture.

She had Asian features, like me. Hair so dark it was almost black. Wide brown eyes. A heart-shaped face with high cheekbones and a narrow mouth. Small, pointed pale breasts with erect brown nipples. A thick thatch of dark public hair. She was sat on the floor in front of an armchair, pursing her little mouth at the camera, her head tilted provocatively to one side, with a book splayed open on the floor beside her. “This is quite an old picture,” he told me, “from my uni days. She liked to be pinched. Her backside, mostly, but also her nipples. She liked me to pinch her hard.”

The book, splayed open on the floor beside her.

“That’s The Ultimate Discworld Companion,” I pointed out. A book which I’d pre-ordered several months ago. A book which had only been published a week ago. I wanted to say it aloud but I just ended up repeating, “That’s The Ultimate Discworld Companion.”

He replied, “She was a big Discworld fan, just like you.”

I put on my nightdress and gave him back the key to his flat and I left.