Rachel's Walk

By David Rory O'Neill

Rachel started life feeling an outsider. A large strong girl with a body that did not fit the fashions of her teens. Unhappy she gained weight and lost her self- worth.
She was saved by two things. The love of a boy from her village who had always had painful crush on her and joining the Royal Navy. There she met a women who was to change her life for ever. Lauren Greer introduced her to the gym and weights and later to work as an undercover intelligence officer. The reborn Rachel becomes a muscular powerful young woman filled with possibilities but still looking for love. Will she find it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Rory O'Neill
• Release date: Aug 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310296574

David Rory O'Neill

What sort of writer am I?Take DH Lawrence's sensuality and sensitivity, mix in a big dollop of John Steinbeck's earthy humour and truth, spice with a dash of Joyce's inventiveness and bawdiness. Sprinkle in a spot of Becket's radical originality. Cook in a slow simmering cauldron over an Irish peat fire given extra heat by the Scots/Irish hard burning coal and dish up in a new bowl of non-conformist Belfast manufacture. That's me. These are big names to live up to but I try.I live in beautiful and splendid isolation over looking the Shannon Valley in County Clare, Ireland. I'm a bit of a cultural orphan - but thanks to the beloved B, I'm very happy in our eclectic art and book filled rural nest.

Book preview

Rachel’s Walk.

David Rory O’Neill.

Published by davidrory publishing at Smashwords.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Copyright © 2014 and 2nd Edition 2018 by David Moody.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born and raised in Belfast until troubles and tribal violence drove him away, David grew to be a non-conformist and independent soul clinging to his counter-culture ideals. He found peace and his true calling as a storyteller in the literary Irish tradition. He now lives in a lovely restored old art and book-filled house in the lee of the Silvermine Mountains, Tipperary, Ireland. He shares his life there with beloved Brigitte. David Rory O’Neill has written twenty novels and more are bubbling and brewing. http://www.davidrory.com

Dedications:

My thanks go to Miriam Drori for editorial help and encouragement.

For Brigitte who showed me what love can be.

For Ria who is my beloved legacy and who in June 2016, gave me a grandson: Art Leonis Parker Eliott.

For Brigitte who showed me what love can be.

For the Indie authors who have overcome self-doubt and embraced readers.

And to the readers who share the vision and have embraced the authors.

David Rory O’Neill. Ireland. 2018

Also by David Rory O'Neill: Available as paperback or eBook.

Rachel’s Walk. Novella (eBook)

Rachel’s War. Novella (eBook)

Rachel’s Might. Novella (eBook)

The Rachel Stories. Paperback omnibus edition.

The Butterfly Effect Trilogy:

Bonny, the Butterfly Effect.

Lauren, the Butterfly Effect.

Chepi, the Butterfly Effect.

The Prairie Companions.

The West Cork Trilogy:

1 Surviving Beauty. 2 Beauty’s Price. 3 Blue Sky Orphan.

4 The West Cork Trilogy. Omnibus (eBook)

The Daniel Series:

1 Conflict. 2 Challenge. 3 Passion. 4 Grip.

5 Judgement. 6 Pyramid. 7 Trial.

The Daniel Series box set: The Adventures of Daniel, Lauren and Bonny. (eBook)

Novellas

Animal. Novella (eBook)

Skellig Testament. Novella (eBook)

I welcome contact with my readers. Information on published and future work can be found on my website: http://www.davidrory.com/

If you enjoyed this novel please leave a review on your suppliers website – reviews are the lifeblood of the modern author.

UK English is used in this work so you will find grey not gray and colour not color– these are not mistakes. (Sorry Noel Webster)

Rachel’s Walk.

The rustle and grind of the sea-sorted stones was a familiar and comforting waking sound. Christopher yawned and turned to the window. The light in the open window was grey/blue as if the North Sea that pounded the shale a hundred yards from the bedroom window cast its light into the sky and painted the rising sunlight to match. Christopher didn’t notice that. He’d been living with the very particular light and sound of this part of the Suffolk coast all his fourteen years. He’d been nowhere else so these sounds and smells and the grey/blue taint of everything in Aldeburgh was all he knew.

Christopher closed his eyes and summoned the internal vision he started each new day with. There was green in this vision. A vivid emerald green as bright as the paint on the door of the house she lived in. The green of her eyes. The big bright eyes set in the perfect circle of her face. Those green eyes made brighter by the contrast with her bronze deeply tanned skin. The round of her face made perfect by the frame of her chocolate-sheen hair. Fringed, bobbed, with little curls that sat on the dimples of her cheeks as if pointing there, saying, ‘Look at my cute dimples. Look at my full plump lips inviting a kiss.’

"Rachel, Rachel," he sounded her name in a whisper crackling with hoarse arousal. His right hand found the morning stiffness and he held it and squeezed but resisted the call for release. The idea of her, the image of her   this vision was too pure for that kind of sullying. Sometimes he couldn’t resist and she was there in his imagination when he found release but he always felt bad when that happened, as if he was cheating, soiling her beauty somehow.

Rachel, Rachel, he said again and rolled out of bed. He’d see her soon and that keenness overcame the natural teenage reluctance to leave bed’s seductive embrace. His mother had noticed the change and she no longer had to nag and shout Christopher out off bed on school days. She’d asked about it but his fierce blushing and silent indignation had told her he was suffering a big crush. She was a wise mother and did not push for an answer. A trap many less sensitive mothers fall into.

Christopher was glad his mum didn’t ask again. He would have hated having to lie to her, for he certainly could not have told her the reason. He’d not noticed the change in his morning routine until she’d mentioned it. Now he knew, he tried to linger more, but still he’d clock-watch and always left in time to get up to the corner of Park Road and the High Street, to Seahorse Cottages, to Rachel’s cottage. He had to be careful though. Once he’d mistimed it and he was past her home before she came out. He couldn’t stop or turn back. He’d had to go on and miss the best part of the morning walk to the bus stop at the far end of the High Street.

The walk behind Rachel, the dreamy drift in her perfumed wake. His eyes caressing the glorious bronze sheen of her legs. The dance of her short pleated skirt on the sweeping curves of her thighs. The flex and undulation of her lower leg muscles as she rose on her toes with that bouncing spring in her walk that suggested athletic fitness. He watched the way her thighs seemed to caress each other as they passed and he was sure he could hear the whisper of skin on skin as one leg kissed the other in that passing. She had round thick thighs bulging with power and strength so alluring and so unusual. Most girls seemed to have thin legs; they seemed to think thin long legs are beautiful and they’d hide their legs if they were strong and thick and filled with power like Rachel’s.

She showed off her legs with short skirts that were so short the teachers would nag her and tell her to pull her skirt lower, so now she did that when she got off the bus. Christopher would watch her tug the skirt down a few inches. Then when she was outside at break or going home, she’d reach up and roll the waistband so her skirt rose again, rose so high he’d once seen the white flash of her panties veed in her big round proud bum. He’d nearly fainted with pleasure at that sight and had to grasp his hardness in his pocket, as he walked behind, intoxicated and drunk on arousal.

Christopher always tried to sit close to her on the bus but never on the same seat or even across the aisle. He’d always try for the seat one behind and diagonal so he could look at her. Christopher would sit with his chin on his hands on the seatback in front and gaze at her lost and transported. He always wished the journey to their school at Alde Valley would take longer.

She’d always cross her legs with one leg out in the aisle. One wonderfully revealed leg with its flash of white ankle-sock that seemed to make the dark gold of her skin seem even more intoxicating. She’d rhythmically bounce that crossed leg so the muscle that bulged above the knee would contract and swell and her relaxed calf muscle would wobble a little like jelly. Sometimes she’d point her toe so the calf would bulge and grow taut and the two muscles would make that lovely deep W-shaped crease. Christopher would imagine running his finger tracing over that W.

He would see and feel the tension in the muscle and once he’d spent ages lying on his bed with one leg in the air and his calf tense, running his finger over the crease and it was her leg, not his, but his leg was not so thick and strong and he couldn’t make such a deep W crease as she did. Christopher sighed and was startled when the little lad on the seat he was leaning on said, What?

Rachel always sat with her friend Jenny and Christopher was glad about that because it meant she always sat on the aisle seat and crossed and danced her legs. He would hear her talk but he tried not to listen to that. He was afraid he’d hear words about boys. He dreaded hearing girl-talk about fancying some lad. Jenny spoke of boys often and was always on about whom she fancied but Rachel never mentioned lads and Christopher was glad about that but… but… what did that mean for when he finally got to talk to her and tell her… Tell her what exactly? Best not think about what he’d say. He’d make himself feel ill when he tried to rehearse what he’d say when… when he got the courage or the opportunity to speak to her. What do you say to a Goddess?

**

Rachel was well aware of Christopher and his interest in her. She was always aware of him drifting along behind her on the way to the school bus. Once or twice she’d paused while walking and just gazed out at the sea. She was testing to see if he would stop and speak to her but he never did. He’d walk past, head down, blushing a little, but would not look at her. She liked the look of him. He had the slightly shambling not yet set look of many lads his age but he was tall and looked like he might be a good-looking lad when he settled into manhood. He had curly hair the same sort of colour, as her own, but his eyes were what she’d noticed. A nice olive green that was unusual. Not that she saw his eyes much for he’d always look away when she looked at him.

She often wondered why he wouldn’t speak to her. He seems to like looking at me but maybe he thinks I’m too big, too fat or somethin’. I am a big girl, maybe he’s afraid his boi will rag him if he fancies a big lass like me. I’m such a worrygut. I think he’s just shy of me. He never talks with girls, never seen him much with lads either. A loner like me, well ‘cept for Jenny but she does blabber so. Christopher likes a good old garp at me legs. He likes those fine, I think. I wish he’d talk to me. Maybe I should but I think he might die off if I did. Yea he’s shy but he seems sweet.

Rachel had many Suffolk dialect words in her thoughts and speech, and got teased about that by school friends. Her parents were much older than was usual and her father in particular was old fashioned and limited in his outlook. He had been a fisherman all his life and had never been further than Ipswich. Rachel had never experience the family holidays her friends spoke of when they came back to school after the summer break. Calling the girls Rachel mixed with friends was perhaps an exaggeration. Even Jenny was not really a proper friend, she was just who Rachel sat with on the bus and in class. She rarely met her outside school hours.

Rachel was not bitter about the demands her elderly parents put on her. She had been used to doing household chores since, well, as long as she could remember. She helped her father out down at the shore when he came back from fishing. Hauling ropes, unloading boxes and carrying them up the slip-slide stones of the beach to the ancient rusty Morris Minor pick up. All this labour and heavy lifting was what gave her the thickset build, big arms and strong legs that other girls made fun of. Rachel tried not to hear these taunts and she tried not to be hurt and feel bad, and on the surface she seemed to succeed. Those that knew her saw a friendly jolly girl who laughed at taunts and smiled a good deal.

Beneath that veneer, Rachel was hurting, so her self-esteem leaked away. She began to over-eat as she grew into her late teens. Rachel found comfort in sweets and chocolate and puddings after dinner. By the time she was seventeen, Rachel was seriously overweight and the taunts grew even more cruel and cutting. She was trapped. The more she was taunted and the unhappier she became, the more comfort eating she did.

All that happened slowly, in a steady trickle over the four years from fourteen to eighteen. The one constant during that time was Christopher. He never stopped following her. And he never stopped watching her on the bus, even when her body got big and her legs got fatter so the muscles were no longer seen beneath the smooth layer of skin and fat.

Rachel inherited two things from her mother. Her mum was of Portuguese descent, so Rachel had her olive skin and ease of tanning. She also got her strong peasant frame made for toil, but she was taller, at five-eleven, than her dumpy little mother. From her father, also of Portuguese heritage, she got her bright green eyes, reddish brown hair and her quaint Suffolk dialect.

Having Christopher’s attention on her was a mixed blessing for Rachel. On the one hand it helped her feel desirable and wanted, but it also caused confusion and frustration. She asked herself why he would not speak to her, almost every day.

As she approached her seventeenth birthday, Rachel decided she would wait no longer for him to make an approach. The day before her birthday she planned a break from normal routine for the journey home from school.

**

Christopher ran to the bus, keen to be away from school as always. He stopped abruptly as he got near the stop. Rachel was standing in the bus shelter. She stood with one foot up on the seat, leaning back resting on the wall. Her skirt was hitched up so the raised leg showed all her thigh. Christopher held his breath. The sight of that bronzed expanse of taut wide thigh, highlighted by her white knee socks, was the