I might be thick, but I can take a hint as big as a mountain. I leaned over and kissed her, the arm of the wheelchair doing its usual job of jabbing me in the stomach.

“Why don’t you come to bed?” I suggested.

Polly could and did get around on crutches in her house, though she tended to stick to her chair. When I pointed this out to her, she gave her usual shrug. “I forget,” she said. “The chair’s so much part of me -- which,” she added thoughtfully, “is why I don’t like people touching it without asking: it feels as if they’re doing it to me -- that I don’t always remember to get out.”

Now, however, she picked up the crutches to lever herself up and into the bedroom. I’d been in there with her before, and it was very Polly. On the face of it, very ‘pretty-pretty,’ but when you looked deeper there was a lot going on -- most of which was contradictory. Her Arsenal team photo (signed, of course) was pinned on the wall next to a purple-and-blue seascape; the flowers on one end of her windowsill were challenged by the cactus down the other end. I turned away from the room and looked at her. Her blonde hair was curling around her face; she was wearing a long velvet-y green dress and some ridiculously sparkly jewelry. Not my style at all -- and yet I loved her. Weird, really. But then, so was Polly. I ran a hand through her curls, smoothed my fingers across her cheekbone.

“Hey, Pollyanna,” I said softly.

She raised her head to mine and kissed me gently on the lips, then a little more firmly. I stroked my hand over her shoulder and down toward where the swell of her breasts lay under the dress. I’ve always been keen on tits, having nothing much to speak of in that direction myself, and Polly was definitely in a different class from me there. In response to me touching her, she snuggled closer in, putting an arm around my neck and pulling me into a thorough embrace. I’ve never really been much for cuddling, preferring to get on with the real business, if you know what I mean, but it was quite nice having Polly acting as a human-sized teddy-bear. Only with the stuffing much more interestingly arranged than in your average cuddly toy.

Apparently, however, Pollyanna was as keen on moving on further as I was; she put her hands on my shirt and unfastened the buttons with slightly clumsy fingers. Funny, I’d never have thought Polly would be clumsy, but I didn’t mind. Made a change to feel like there was something I could do better than her. Except for walking, of course. When she finished, I shrugged the shirt off my shoulders. I didn’t have a bra on, for obvious reasons, and I waited for the inevitable critique from my well-endowed girlfriend. They didn’t usually say it, my partners, but you could see it in their eyes.

“You’re gorgeous,” Polly said, though, looking at me with this kind of strange sort of admiration, and the funny thing was, with Pollyanna looking at me that way, I believed her. At first, her eyes were on the star on my shoulder. Once more, she traced its pattern with her fingers. Somehow she knew what it meant to me, though I’d never told her why. But then she bent her head and kissed each breast in turn, first the so-called curves at the top, then the nipples. Size can’t be everything, because it felt just amazing. As far as I was concerned, Polly could’ve kept on kissing them all night and she seemed to feel the same way, too. Every so often, she looked back up at me, as if she could hardly believe that this was happening. “Leigh,” she said. “You’re gorgeous.”

“I’m really not,” I said, not being exactly used to taking compliments, but Polly only laughed at me.

“Well, I fancy you,” she said.

“That’s fortunate. I’d be buggered if you didn’t, now wouldn’t I?” I retorted. “Or rather, not buggered -- except we’re not blokes and I don’t expect there’s a dildo to hand. Or is there?” If there was, I knew a thing or two we could get up to, but I was just as happy to manage without...

“Shut up,” said Polly, kissing me to make sure I did what I was told.