Wednesday

Mid-week was finally here and Jackie flopped onto the sofa, feet up and shoes toed off. Bliss. A few blessed minutes for a nap then Beth would be home. She dozed and waited for the door to slam.

**

The week was pretty much like any other ..... except The Beatles were coming to dinner Friday night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Scream!!

School was still a drag, the weather was getting icy, Gert was being a major bag, the teachers wanted that essay finished and worst of all,  the Beatles weren't coming outside in the afternoons.... But they were coming to my house Fridayyyyyyayyyy!!!

Beth looked at Katie who was fingering her curls. They were perfect curls tight and neat, natural and the colour was beyond lovely and my hair, Beth mused, is just..... dead boRRRing.

"Wear the pinafore dress; you always look nice in that and I'll wear the cocktail dress I wore to the dumb 'Opening Night at West End' party my old's threw the other week"

"Pinafore, isn't it a bit babyish?" Beth slipped through the gate and watched Katie open the door to her home.....
Katie was always so forward.

"Put the black shirt underneath and it will look hot. Dead set"

"Oh yeah I guess that-"

"Shush your mums asleep. Look at her stocking, three toes peeping out. She needs new stuff super badly"

"She'll whip the clear nail lacquer out and fix those"

Katie stepped back into the kitchen and gazed out the window over the sink, Beth sat up on the bench beside her. Quietly they chattered "Beth, why do you think the Beatles actually, actually came to your house"

Beth shrugged "They wanted to talk 'bout school"

"Somethings up. I don't know what but I'll-"

"Hi girls!" Jackie sat up and shook the sleep away. She then spotted her toes "Bugger. Beth grab the lacquer"

Beth rolled her eyes at Katie and whispered "Told you"

After grabbing the stupid lacquer Beth and Kate played hangman on her bed. George and John gazing over Beths shoulder or, facing the other direction, they leaned in for Katie...

It didn't matter which way they looked, the room was covered with posters- wall to wall!

"Maybe your mum is actually going to be friends with, and not just servant girl to, Battie Poyd"

"Don't call her that"

"What call your mum, your mummmm?"

"No the other- Battie Foyd"

"Ha you said it!" Katie bounced up and down on her knees on her spot on the bed. Beth scowled half-heartedly, it was funny but Pattie was coming to dinner.... "Oh, come onnnn it's funny" Straight faced and staring into Beth they both collapsed into giggles on the bed.

Sending Katie on her way, the afternoon for the two Gordon girls settled into it's usual mundane repose. Sorting the washing, ironing
Mending stockings.... some of Jackie's chores and for Beth... well she got it quite easy on the week days. She was a voracious reader, and that was ok with Jackie, she was one herself, hurtling through book after book, chasing spaceships or being in the middle of the civil war or regency England, perhaps a Scottish laird would sweep her away... Reading was calming, imaginative and the Gordon girls loved to devour books on rainy days or of an evening, anytime at all really. The only trouble was that Beth wanted more and more teen magazines these days. Meet The Beatles Magazine etcetera. She had her Beatles Fan Club membership and got her newsletters which she kept in a shoebox on her dresser. Jackie supposed it was still reading.....

After egg and chips for dinner Beth lay on the floor in the living room and finished her homework.

"Mum, why did the Beatles want to come to dinner. You're not-" Beth struggled with what word she wanted to say and Jackie stared down into her novel, breath caught, waiting.

Scarlett and Rhett never looked so good as when her eye balls were nearly popping from her eye sockets waiting for the penny to drop.....

"You're not, we're not. You know... special. You know, not special like Miss Boyd. I don't understand, you know"

"Please stop saying you know"

"Ok...... They were terribly nice though, weren't they"

Barely a whisper of a reply, Jackie smiled softly "Yes. Yes, they were" Lifting her eyes to look at her daughter was hard but what stared back was so very lovely. Gentle features and a dreamy faraway look. It was a wonderful thing that the princes spent time with them but Jacqueline still needed to be careful on Beth's behalf "Bethy you need to be on best behaviour. Johns married. You understand that, don't you?"

"Of course. I can't wait to play with little Julian"

"You can't!?"

"Johns little boy is so cute, you saw the newspaper picture. Cute as a button. Maybe I could really babysit sometime"

Jackie smiled, it was unlikely but she wasn't going to stop her daughter's harmless daydreams. And it was great that Beth was focusing on the baby and not John. Perhaps she could breathe a little easier.

Beth dragged all the books toward her satchel and cleared away her teacup and empty plate from her supper. "I'm done. I'm going to bed so Friday gets here sooner" She smiled, leaning over her mum, tugging the wretched book from Jackie's eyes, she smiled ever wider and gave her mum a goodnight kiss.

"That's an awfully good idea. Night sweetheart"

Beth stood on the second step watching Jackie. Her knees were drawn up close on the armchair with her feet naughtily placed on the seat. And the book basically melded with her, as one. Page grasped and book leant on one knee, teacup teetering on the other "No staying up all hours reading that book mother!" She teased.

"No mummy...." Jackie looked over her shoulder grinning "Now... Go to bed you cheeky monkey"

Rhett Butler: "Open your eyes and look at me. No, I don't think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That's what's wrong with you. All your beaux have respected you too much, though God knows why, or they have been too afraid of you to really do right by you. The result is that you are unendurably uppity. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how."

The conversation was not going the way she wanted it. It never did when she was with him. Always, it was a duel in which she was worsted.

"And I suppose you think you are the proper person?" Scarlett asked with sarcasm, holding her temper in check with difficulty.

"Oh, yes, if I cared to take the trouble," he said carelessly. "They say I kiss-

The knock was light but persistent, breaking into Rhett and Scarletts little clash rudely. Jackie sat the book down and looked up at the ceiling hoping Beth wouldn't wake from the window rattling. Yes, the little window in the top of the door rattled a little as whoever it was rat-a-tat-tatted.

She wrenched the door open after seeing the time. It was nearly one a.m! Damn Rhett Butler.

"Yes"

"Hello Luv" he said so sweetly and with a little uplifting tilt on the end.... It was better suited to a visitor visiting at a regular hour of the day... like say, three p.m. in the afternoon.

"Paul what are you doing here" Jackie pulled and tugged and clasped the dressing gown tighter to herself. The chill air hit as soon as the door opened and heat flooded her as soon as she saw his face. Maybe the dressing gown should come off...

"Why are you whispering in a sexy hissy tone"

"Because it's flipping one in the morning"

"Well better go to bed then"

"Ok" Jackie went to shut the door but Paul wasn't having any of that nonsense. The boot went in the space that was left and the hand pulled the tie on her dressing gown open. "Paullllll"

"I brought you a present"

"At one a.m, in the morning?!"

"Well any times a good time for gift giving"

"Well hand it over then"

Paul took a step closer, the door widening. The heat she was experiencing earlier suddenly clawing at her undergarments. Undergarments! She had a flimsy as night shirt on! Shut. Door. Now!

He has a present though.

It's probably him.

Ohhhhh gawd.... She pushed, he grinned. She scowled, he poked her nose. She sighed, and he thought he had won.

"Out"

"I'm not in yet"

"Paullll, please it's early or late. I was in bed"

"Liar you were in the front room reading"

"Were you peeking in my window?!"

"I wouldn't call it peaking exactly, just checking"

"Just checking what!?"

"Just checking my Jack was aloneeee"

"Ugh Paul. Beth will be down here if your voice gets any louder-"

"I haven't even started being loud yet. Let me in and I'll see how loud you can get me.."

Paul released the door grinning, thinking of legs and lips and hips and being overly loud. Jackie pushed and he was outside, and so was she.

"You, Paul McCartney, are incorrigible" Her fingers played with his collar, she was itching to taste him.

He wrapped a hand around her neck, tugging softly and she moved under her own volitation. Insides fluttery and lifting her up to that lovely plateau he seemed to be able to place her on with barely a word, a single look alone claiming her.

"And you my dear... are outside with me... alone"

She leaned in and his fingers found their way in and round and under her daggy gown, a light scratchy nail running gauntlet around her nipple. She moaned at the feeling. And Paul dipped his head and sucked and nipped through her thin shirt.

Pulling his jacket apart her own fingers chased a way in and under and into. He pulled back and all she could see was lust and want and it was going to drive her mad if she didn't have him but she was on her front door step in the middle of the night.....

Her doorstep... in the middle of the night.

Shaking as he knead her breast with precision, and gazed into her like she was his very favourite meal, Jackie pulled her hands away from the damn zipper on his damn trousers and put them both over his hands that pressed and possessed her breasts.

Squeezing, she held her hands over his and willed herself to stop him and she must most definitely stop squeezing him to make him continue squeezing her!

It was hard. It was Everest in a snowstorm with a hurricane attached.

Stopping the bolt of lightning that was Paul McCartney from scorching her was like playing at being God. And who was she to say she was god.

Ohhhh Goddddddd.

"Where's my present" She gasped out, when a particularly wonderful roll and pinch was given under her hands.

"What? Me! I am the present"

"Paullll"

"Oh alright. Hang on. So impatient wanting the wrapping off before the gifts wrapped"

Jacqueline giggled into his hair as he ducked into her collarbone placing his tongue on the bone and running it along, his hand fell away from hers in the process. The innuendo he spoke, and he spoke volumes, was corny and sexy and funny and it was to her. He kissed her lips and presented his palm.

And there sat a little female vixen for her lonely little fox.

***

She didn't let him in.

Not in the house
Not in the living room
Nor the kitchen

Not in her.

She had conquered Everest and wondered if she would ever have the opportunity to climb up on it again.

Paul was sent away with kisses. Many, many kisses and she let him run his hands up her legs and she hadn't exactly let him run that finger over her knickers but he had and she had melted and wanted to feel his stroke, ever touch on her again, and again.
And he just smiled and stepped away. The fingers, that talented hand, dropping to his side.

And she felt like she needed to speak at a funeral she was so bereft.

"Friday, come over on Friday"

"When"

"Whenever" Her fingers clutched his jacket and she didn't really want him to go. She wanted him to wake in her bed and see her all messy and sated from their night before.

"Alright but I want some time with you- alone Jacqueline. More than a kiss by the refrigerator too"

"Behave on the night"

"I'm not eleven you know... but I get it. Behave in front of the girls, I will..." The tiny peck was placed on her lips and her eyes closed as he pressed their bodies together once more "I promise.... I'm going now" Paul mumbled as he grazed lips over her cheek and worked methodically back to her lips "I'm going. I'll behave" Kissing her was wonderful. "I'm... going" pecks of bliss "I'll be good" sweet promises lit lightly onto her lips. "Promise"

"Friday" She breathed over his skin.

She didn't know how but she would have time with him, she would take time with him.

She would....

Promise.

A/N: It's nearly Fri-dayyyayy......!

Bold words above are of course from the Novel 'Gone with the Wind' by Margaret Mitchell.