Elspeth swept her hands down over the sodden skirt of her beach dress and began to stroll towards the cabin. She watched as Guy swam to keep pace with her slow, reflective progress, her course meandering in and out of the soft tumble of the surf. She would gaze his way, but she would not give voice to what she now thought of them sharing these few, precious, moments together while they had the opportunity to do so.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to swim?’ she heard him call out, the happy lightness in his voice impossible to ignore.
She really shouldn’t be doing this, but his attentiveness charmed her. She needed that most of all. Her son-in-law was only too aware of her troubled marriage; and he…he sought some solace for what was playing out in his. Her daughter, Melanie, made no secret of it and the drag on her social life of having borne a daughter. Being here on holiday, in Florida, had tempered Melanie’s behaviour towards him; a clever young man on a successful career path as a lawyer.
Guy stood waist deep in the surf and she took in the look of the man upon her, his teasing ways impossible to ignore and that she conceded to. He was seen to sweep back his tousled sandy brown hair. She saw the flex in his arm muscles and the tightening of his stomach as he had reached up.
Why am I now wanting to be with him, she wondered.
They were far enough away from the cabin for the others not to see them and what she felt compelled to do, her senses inflamed at the sight of him and what she knew he sought of her. He had been patient but had let her know that he was here for her if she needed his company, or a comforting word.
‘Oh, why not…what have I got to lose?’ she said in recognition of what prevailed in her mind. She loved to hear him speak or crack a joke, or to act the playful fool for his Jenny. She would see his boyish embarrassment on being caught out, whenever he met her look upon him. What she witnessed made her feel a part of him in the search for normality that he also craved. He was unafraid to express affection or to show it and in doing so to strengthen a bond between them. It was something that she had less of in her relationship with Ken.
‘I need you to take me out of whom I have become…’ she said, knowing no one would hear her.
Melanie and Jenny had long since returned to the cabin and she had time to be in Guy’s company. The others would be unable to see what was playing out between them and that the company of others would soon bring to an end; all that she could discover so impetuously and with Guy’s encouragement.
She dropped her dress, and beach bag, onto the sand and ran back into the sea. She tumbled into the water and made her way to him, adjusted the fit of her halter-neck bikini and then her briefs. It flattered her fulsome figure and would leave nothing to Guy’s imagination of what she could bring to his gaze and touch.
‘Well what’s it to be…lovely Els?’
He asked it softly, on drawing her into his embrace and met the look of wonder in her eyes. They stared out of an unlined almost perfectly oval face, her auburn hair slicked back and fastened in a ponytail. Turquoise ear studs glistened along with a matching necklace of baubles that hung down onto her cleavage.
He ached to know of her, and Elspeth knew it.
‘Only this, Guy…look what you make me do,’ she confessed.
Elspeth rose, put her arms impetuously about his neck and met an improbable kiss. She behaved brazenly as she felt compelled to respond to his advances and to be lifted into his arms and to wrap her legs around his waist. She wanted to know of his kisses to her skin; the press of his lips to the swell of her breasts and their gentle, clamping touch to her nipples; touches that she had all but forgotten could bring such unbounded joy, and the prospect of so much more, from a man…the rush of longing that she knew would go unrequited. She trembled on feeling this brazen, unsolicited, act of homage being paid to her body. She moved her hips and pressed in response against his questing touches, so brazenly pursued and that she wished to know of.
‘I’m lost, Guy…so utterly lost!’ She said it as she raised her face to the sky and languished in his embrace. She felt his lips to her skin and the beguiling rhythmic press of his fingers that sent shivers of longing coursing through her body. They aroused the need to move and meet these claims and to satisfy his uncommon hunger for her. She had already learnt of Guy’s devotion over the months that she had gradually learned that his marriage was in trouble. But that was not to excuse what was now happening between them. ‘I’m so lost in this…wat you’re doing to me!’
‘As I am now…Els. As I am, now…you wonder.’ He lusted after his mother-in-law; a woman who resolutely refused to give in to a debilitating condition; that of arthritis. She withstood its destructive effects with grace and continued to take pride in her appearance and retained a captivating attractiveness in her slender, voluptuous, form. ‘Be close to me…let go of it all…take your mind off everything but us being here. I need that from you too.’
They dipped down into the water, their claims upon each other unseen and purposeful.
‘I’m ashamed of what I’m doing, but…but I want you to touch me…just to touch me, please…like this…and…yes…like that…and yes again…yes, there!’
Els held him fiercely. She squirmed on feeling his lips on her breasts, through her bikini top, and fingers slowly caress and slowly enter her, the waves making them rise and fall in time with their acts of sharing the moments available to them.
For now, in the soothing and warming waters of the ocean, she felt strangely wanton; would know of it differently and feel the rush of rejuvenation course through her body and she would live for the day and every moment that it offered. She would surrender to everything that Guy’s lips and fingers brought to her. It was destructive behaviour, disloyal and wanton, but she craved Guy’s homage and attention. She yearned to know of loving acts that Ken rarely pursued with her.
Guy’s behaviour now revealed a harsher, sharper, reality to how life had become for her. A life only too real and different. She sought to pursue every moment of it that she could and embraced him, fiercely, as he began to touch her in ways that had her lose all sense of reason; to shudder in her pleasure and to bask in the love of a different, younger, man for her.
‘Let it all go, Els…let it all go…share it all with me. You’ve seen how Melanie is with me now and that having Jenny will not change…’
She looked down into his upturned face as he lifted her to make his claims easier to pursue. What he confessed to had entered her consciousness too, how Melanie often spoke of him. His work as a lawyer simply wasn’t enough and only too predictable, even boring, and the birth of Jenny a hindrance to the life that she had sought to pursue.
But now…
‘I’m lost….lost,’ she gasped once more as she felt the cramping rush of her orgasm course through her body; her shivers making her settle on his fingers and to clasp him around his neck and breathe on his skin,
‘Els….Els,’ he whispered as if consoling her for needing him to make her life seem real.
Elspeth felt his lips press against her throat as he gently kissed her skin; as Guy encouraged her to languish in his embrace until her shivers of avowal of all that she had known, and shared with him, slowly ebbed away.
‘I’ve known how it is for you…but just what am I to do? It’s madness that you’ve brought upon me…utter and destructive madness.’
Guy met her startled look as reality seemed to return, before he eased her from him and they made for the shore, their impetuous tryst at a sudden end. Elspeth’s conscience had prevailed.
He gathered up Elspeth’s clothes and they resumed their stroll through the surf and returned to the cabin, speaking casually and with some distance now to be seen between them.
‘Stay who you were moments ago, please?’ he asked in some bewilderment, believing that she had drawn into herself once more. He had seen it often enough, when the pain in her joints drained her of all energy.
‘A woman freed from her prison…her braces and the pain…if only for a few moments. Is that what you mean?’
‘Yes…please do that, for yourself as much as for me.’
She knew again the madness of where he had taken their relationship, or their dealings with each other, yet Elspeth wanted to believe in it. She would seek to hold fast the memory of what had been shared with him; his kisses and touches to be seen as acts of homage that had been paid to her.
But the harsher reality of life would soon intrude and her memories, his actions and the considered words from Guy, would have to suffice.
♥