It's Just Not Cricket!

By Adam Mann

She kept on looking at the back of her left hand, sometimes held it up to catch the light.
“Why did you choose that colour?”
“The green stone is a gem stone called a garnet and I thought it would match you lovely eyes.”
She held her hand by the side of her face, so that I could see both eyes and the ring at the same time. There was a lot of brown in her green eyes, but her eyes seemed to sparkle like her ring. What I had not realized was that the circle of seven diamonds made her ring appear similar to her eyes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ButterflyBooks
• Release date: Apr 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463801468

Adam Mann

Adam Mann has lived and worked in Africa and then Asia for many years. He has always been fascinated by personal relationships, and in real life is now enjoying his fourth marriage, after being widowed, divorced, and even had a marriage annulled as this ‘wife’ had forgotten to get divorced.As a result he has extensive experience of social and sexual activities, which he brings into his books in explicit detail. Underlying all these activities is a quest for a loving and ongoing relationship with his partner.Adam Mann is a pen name.

Book preview

Butterfly Books

It’s Just Not Cricket!

An explicit and dynamic love story

By Adam Mann

ISBN: 9780463801468

©2019 Adam Mann

Cricket started as a game in English villages many years ago. Cricket buffs in Somerset say 300 years, or more. Fair play was always a priority, and cheats could be ostracized and hounded out of local society in those days. The Phrase That’s not cricket! became to be used in place of It’s not fair! Then the game turned professional…

There’s not much cricket in this book but they do find themselves playing tennis, so please enjoy it.

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out

Alfred Hitchcock

Chapter One: Caught and Bowled!

I was sitting near the window on the lower floor of the bus watching the people in the street as the bus ploughed through the traffic. Opposite me on the bus was a group of ladies who were obviously intending to enjoy a night out together, and were chatting and laughing loudly together.

I used the bus, as did many people in this city, because trying to park a car was almost impossible and the surcharges huge, so the alternative was taxis, which were great for short distances but very expensive for longer trips. The underground, also known as the tube, was great if it wasn’t raining!

It was evening, and I was on my way home after a difficult day in my office, and decided to console myself with a quiet drink on the way. The group of ladies, and I counted five of them for some reason, got off the bus at the stop before me and all walked along the road chatting and laughing together after the bus deposited them.

My stop was another four or five hundred yards further on, and I got off and headed for one of my favourite pubs, or public house if you don’t like that abbreviation. I pushed the swing door open and went in. I was surprised how crowded it was – perhaps many other people had had a bad day at the office!

The barman saw me and raised a hand. I nodded and he lifted a glass to the dispenser and I saw the amber liquid trickling into the tumbler. He lifted it over customers’ heads towards me, and I reached to get it. I noticed that he had put two small cubs of ice in the tumbler, just as I liked.

I took a large sip immediately and immediately felt better.

I headed towards a quiet corner of the pub with a glass in one hand and the evening newspaper that I hadn’t been able to read on the bus, in the other.

I swilled the liquid and the half melted ice cubes in my glass clinked around and took a larger drink, and felt even better, again.

The news was depressing – papers rarely publish good news – and I put the paper down to look around the pub. There were several single men that I knew with some of them talking together. I saw one man sitting at the bar about my age that looked up and waved at me, but he did not smile and somewhat morosely went back to his drink. Knowing him I realized that he also probably had a bad day at his office, but then according to him he usually did.

I’d better explain.

I work for a publishing company, and we specialize in romance books which over the years have sold very well. That was the traditional print paperback books, which still sell, but are being slowly overtaken by indie books, or electronic books, eBooks.

The company does not mind this as we are also selling some of the new books as eBooks. It is the selling and marketing of these that is the problem, and the so called market place is still being defined. The traditional market for readers was the local bookstore, or the newsagent, but the costs of retaining those markets is growing with stocks of paper books having to be retained, and the costs of printing growing daily.

Unfortunately, many authors are self publishing their books, which is great for all of us, but the quality of some of these self published books is sometimes questionable, or not good, indeed terrible, with little editing or even proofreading, and glaring mistakes left for the unfortunate reader having paid for the book to cope with.

My work is in editing and proofreading and I have a team of hardworking editors and readers who work from home, mainly women, but also a few more elderly men.

The finance department of the company has been trying to reduce costs and overheads, and they even suggested we reduce the fees we pay to our editors! Their suggestion was that we reduce the amount of work we give to the established team, and recruit younger people to do their work but for lower fees!

My suggestion was that we try to reduce printing costs so that we could keep the costs of printed books at an affordable level.

The argument goes on and on. On the face of it everybody is right, but that takes away the human aspect; after all reading is a pastime, a hobby, and something that should be enjoyed.

I looked up from my drink, as there was a commotion in the pub near the bar. The group of five ladies that I had noticed on the bus earlier, had made their way into the pub and were now meeting friends with great glee and laughter, but probably a bit later than arranged.

A second drink would not hurt, I reasoned…

I caught the barman’s eye and held my glass in the air, and he indicated that he had understood me. A minute later the waitress brought a new glass to me, with a several ice cubes in another small bowl. I took several in my fingers and out them in my glass, and gave my empty tumbler to the waitress. She smiled at me but did not ask for any money, as she knew I would settle with the barman later.

A group of people on their feet lurched towards me, and I stood up rapidly to avoid spilling my drink. A woman at the edge of the lurching group looked over her shoulder at me and smiled. For a minute I was shocked! What a beautiful face.

Her skin was