1
Tony smiled and chose to stop and talk to the woman who was a near neighbour and often to be seen tending her front garden, its flowers in tubs and hanging baskets. She also devoted her time to the bird table that was often hidden from view by a flock of starlings that descended upon it like a swarm of locusts.
‘You’d win the best kept garden competition every year, Beth!’ he laughed out and saw her stand up straight and look his way. She soon closed the space between them, Tony taking in the wistful smile that she gave him, her ash blonde hair, a mottled black and white sleeveless blouse that hung loose over white slacks, her feet in gladiator sandals. She did take care of her appearance and he delighted in the woman before him. They peered at each other over the hedge.
‘Thank you, Tony…for saying it, not many do.’ She took off some gardening gloves and pushed her beaded bracelets back into place on her wrists, some becoming entangled with a large watch that she wore.
He took in the woman before him, was glad to have chosen to stop and talk. Beth would be an undoubted distraction from all that prevailed in his life and that he spoke little of, especially to those he scarcely knew. He’d make an exception in her case, reaching his decision on the spur of the moment and her undoubted attractiveness.
‘I can see you take pride in it all…and the results are there for all to see. My efforts are a bit lame compared to yours…’
‘But you’ve had other things on your mind. How are you now? I heard what happened to your wife…’ Beth paused, unable to recall the woman’s name. She had not been seen with him for some time but had thought them to be a happy couple. ‘Alison…how is she?’
‘She’s in The Lodge…thanks for asking,’ he answered, suppressing a sigh for it touched a nerve. ‘I go there most days, but she gets upset to see me…can often remember how it once was for us…how she was then. Moments of awareness are fewer than they once were and that takes some getting used to.’ He shrugged as if embarrassed to have confided in her when they had never spoken of such matters before. ‘I go to the rowing club, every other day and spend an hour or so sculling…do that on my own to work it all out of my system, how she is and what seems to fog up Ali’s mind. I’ll be there again later…’
‘Then I’d better not keep you…’
‘You’re not,’ he smiled as if he needed to reassure her, Beth seeing how the stubble on his face, greying just like his hair, creased when he did that. The tone of his arms and his physique bore witness to what he had told her. Tony Winterton looked fit for his age, broad-chested and he possessed a square-jawed ruggedness, his sense of casual dress belying his age, that she put at sixty or so. ‘I’ve…I’ve often wondered if you’re in much the same place as me?’
The delay in answering him had Tony thinking he’d stepped over the line, but he saw her shrug as if he’d wrung a confession from her.
‘I divorced ten years ago…retired soon after when I had the chance. I live alone…no family, to speak of. What about you, apart from what you’ve just told me?’
Beth couldn’t help but wonder where this was all leading. They had gone beyond the day-to-day exchange of pleasantries you fall into when out walking. Tony stepped closer to the hedge to allow people to pass on the narrow pavement, each of them offering words of greeting and no more.
‘No, it’s just like it is for you in my case.’ He looked away for an instant and Beth sensed that Tony had something on his mind. ‘We…we could meet for a drink by the canal-boat basin in town…maybe have some lunch and talk some more? It would be a few moments of different company…’
‘You mean, you’d do that after you’ve been to see Alison?’ she asked in some dismay. It seemed he had not stopped on a whim to talk to her after all. ‘How would that look…what am I to make of that idea?’
‘Normal, even understandable, in the circumstances…it was just an idea…’ He made to go, hitched a plastic bag of shopping into one hand and stood up straight once more. Tony took in her appearance as if for the last time. ‘I’d better get on…’
She met his unsmiling look upon her but had nothing more to say to him. Tony sought company, had shamelessly asked that it be her, but his suggestion had thrown her off guard. He had only taken a few steps when he turned on his heels and came back to her. He soon took in that she hadn’t moved since he had taken his leave of her.
‘I’ll be on the terrace of El Café at one, tomorrow. I’ll stay there for lunch even if you decide not to take me up on my invitation…’
An attractive and vigorous man had shown his interest in her, but she wasn’t the impetuous sort. ‘You’ll know tomorrow, Tony…not now, sorry.’
2
Her reflection told its own story, might even explain Tony ‘coming onto her’.
She knows that she’s slender and curvaceous, her weight never a concern, for she walked regularly and rarely took her car out of the neatly kept garage set at the side of her bungalow. She eats sparingly and carries little or no surplus weight, her tummy having a few creases, but she doesn’t fret over that, not at all. She’s no grand-motherly type, and never will be, turning into a plumper version of herself that she studies in the gilded hall mirror as she thinks of Tony and his ways.
Her marriage ended some years ago. Tony is still bound to another, but she can scarcely imagine what it does to you, to have your lover unable to recognise you or to respond to your touches, and soft words, as they once did. She can only think that his needs haven’t been met in some time and she’s no different in that, the touch of a man and his claims on her body something that she has missed more than words can truly describe.
Had she really fallen into thinking of Tony Winterton as a man to end her days and nights of a particular loneliness, and in doing so to make good the absence of another in his life?
She would often stand at the window of her living room, the net curtains like a veil, and look out onto the lane, there to see locals that she knew pass by, none so curious as wanting to know how she was when they looked her way. It only ever happened when she was out in her small front garden, the boundary marked by a neatly clipped hedge that in the autumn bore a profusion of small red berries. It attracted even more birds to her feeders than at other times of the year.
Tony had stopped and she’d taken in his appearance, a denim shirt worn with some chinos, his hair brushed back from his high cheeked face, the greying stubble only too clear on his tanned skin. As they talked, she had taken to wondering how his six-foot frame fitted into a scull, his bulk perched awkwardly on the sliding seat before he began to row.
What would be the harm in meeting him in a very public place, El Café looking out over the canal basin and with locals and tourists jostling you, their happy, bubbly. chatter on the air? It would lift her spirits some more, and she would be in company of a very different sort, that of a man in undoubted need of distraction, maybe someone to confide in and to speak of a particular emptiness in her life and he would soon understand, a particular loneliness when she lay in her bed.
Her private life had been jealousy guarded and no one could claim to have any salacious gossip about Beth Henderson who kept to herself. Whom she became when in the arms of a man always remained their secret.
So, lunch would give her a chance to really take him in, along with Tony’s looks and ways with her. The time would be spent deciding on him and if she should offer solace, or become an only to real and fleshy distraction from what prevailed in his life away from her.
Tony would be wondering much the same about her. She had seen it in his eyes when they had been speaking, a look that suggested he was wondering just what she would bring to him, her blouse, slacks, her fly-away hair when the breezed had caught it and she’d raised a hand to keep it from her face, a sure sign that she had aroused more than his curiosity in her.
If she was going to take a man as a lover and pursue uncomplicated times of it, then she’d like it to be with the man who had come onto her: a strong, fit and well-dressed man, not a punchy hopeful trying it on at some drinks do she sometimes attended in the village.
Beth sought her iPhone as she wavered on her decision.
‘How silly of me not to ask for his number. I don’t have it…so I’ll have to keep to what I told Tony.’
He’d be kept wondering, so her appearance at the stated time, and at the restaurant of his choosing, would be sure to liven up their lunch and what they would talk about.
3
Her lunch with Tony had passed as if in a whirlwind, their slow walk afterwards around the canal-boat basin and stopping at a small gallery, in one of the converted barges moored there, only heightening her sense of anticipation of what he would say to seduce her into being with him, at his place or at hers, and when that would be.
‘I had a sleepless night thinking about this…’ she had confessed, ‘whether to go through with it, but that would have denied me the chance for us to be together.’
‘So no regrets, then?’ a smile teasing the corners of his mouth. She really did like his ways of it, of putting her at ease..
He had looked at her over the rim of his wineglass, his eyes never leaving her. It had been that way, or so it felt, from the moment she had seen him stand up and beckon to her, a table for two set out on a terrace, his smile letting her know the pleasure he felt on seeing her.
‘No, no regrets. The dream also had me thinking of someone else in your life…’
‘This morning was a bad one for us,’ he had soon admitted. ‘I came away and got here with minutes to spare. Alison scarcely recognised me, so…so I left when I knew she’d settled back into what I can only assume is her own world. It’s happening more often…and it’s something I can’t get used to seeing.’
‘I’m sorry…for you…for both of you,’ she had consoled, ‘though I know you better and have had to imagine the rest…’
‘You’ve done that?’ he had asked in some surprise to hear her confess to it.
‘Yes, of course I did that. I have to understand the reasons for you wanting to be with me like this…how sudden it all it is.’
They had spoken of it again as they strolled along the sides of the canal basin, stopped on the arching bridge over the lock-gates, before retracing their steps, unsure how to end their time together. Tony had held her arm, at the elbow, for only an instant, his touch arousing a shiver of expectation in her and as they stood facing each other.
‘I’d…I’d like your company in other ways. Beth…I know that now, after our lunch and talking to you…hearing how life’s been for you.’ He’d brushed fingertips over her lightly made-up face and had met her answering stare. She hadn’t moved away from his touch.
What had he seen in her nature, or behaviour when they had first met, to suggest that he could behave in the way that he had done? He had asked her to sleep wit him and had done so in the politest of ways.
‘I…I don’t know if I should…or that I can.’
‘I’m having to live two lives,’ he had chosen to admit, ‘one emptier than I ever thought possible or that I want. I have to fill the other with such work that I can still do, or choose to do, as I make up for losses in the other. I can’t put it any simpler than that…selfish, I know, as it may all sound.’
‘But it’s being honest…’ His explanation held no hint of an apology, simply the harsh statement of the fact, what his life had become and the solace to be found with her.
They had walked on, only to stop and start, as they considered what had been spoken of.
‘We’re two adults seeking company, uncomplicated where it concerns them alone…’ Tony had taken hold of her hand and kissed her fingers. ‘I’ll leave you here, to think about it….’
‘I will…and I now have your number.’
‘As I have yours, lovely Beth,’ he had smiled in that captivating way of his. ‘I’ll understand if….’
‘Don’t go reaching any conclusions, not now and after all that you’ve said…and not on my behalf!’
He would have heard the vehemence in her voice, but how was she to deal with a man who had asked her to sleep with him in the ways that Tony had?
4
She stood in her darkened living room and stared across the lane to Tony’s house. It was late, but the lights were still to be seen in his bedroom, she supposed, for Tony’s small back garden had its views over the fields beyond and he, as well Alison, would want to make the most of them from their living room and kitchen windows.
The man had been in her thoughts since she had arrived home and she had looked out for him, like some young girl besotted with a new love. She had seen him park his car on the short, gravelled, driveway and not in the timber-clad garage as he usually did.
Meeting him for lunch, and all that had been spoken of, had certainly set a hare running, and she was disconcerted that the offer of company, in whatever form it might take and its duration uncertain, was there for her to accept…succumb to, more like, given the way that she felt.
‘Why now, Tony…why me?’ she murmured, rubbing the skin of her bae arms, the evening chill not to be kept at bay by the nightdress she had put on, the lacey straps broad and holding the bodice in place, the fabric shaping the tumble of her round breasts, their indolent sag unmistakable, the ruched fabric of the skirt scarcely concealing the dark mat of hair on her pussy.
She touched it, thought of his strong hands on her, cupping her breasts or stroking her, his fingers working their magic and seducing her into abandoning any restraint or remaining scruples.
‘I can’t possibly ring you…’
As she reached for her iPhone the contraption glowed then sprang into life, its musical ringtone filling the room. She looked at the screen, waited for Tony to speak. What a coincidence…
‘Hello, Beth, I just wondered…?’ Tony said in a low voice as if not wishing to be overheard.
‘Yes, I’m still awake…and standing in my living room. I see that your lights are on…’
‘I wanted to thank you again for being with me…and not rushing away when I asked you do something for me…’
‘And you’re wondering where it may lead to,’ she suggested nervily, ‘and what my answer is to you on tha?’
‘Yes, Beth, even at this late hour…I’m wondering about that.’ Tony paused. ‘I…we could both put an end to wondering…’ He paused again. ‘May I be with you…now…in a moment or two? No one will know…’
‘No one will know what we’ve resorted to…or fallen into doing.’ She looked across the lane to his house, saw that one of the lights had been turned off. ‘You won’t give me any time to think this through, will you…Tony?’
Beth’s voice left him in doubt. ‘Being with you over lunch took my mind off everything for a while. Now, I need loving…want to give in to the heat of the moment…and if so, to let it be with you, Beth…’
‘It’s all going a little crazy, Tony…’
‘I know, and it’s the same for me. How we were made me believe we could get close…that I might be a man you could be with…’
‘Tony…Tony,’ she sighed, torn between her sense of propriety and what had been aroused in her by the man who lived across the lane. He had never given any clue to wanting to know of her and she had been coy about what was wanted from him.
It felt as if she was on a roller-coaster ride, was at the op before a dizzying fall. She pressed her fingers to her belly on feeling the first rush of anticipation grip her and a tightening in her throat.Her lustful, well-made, neighbour and a man so sure of his ways was asking to be with her and for them to become lovers, the motivation driving each of them to the decision quite distinct.
‘The back door will be unlocked…I’m here for you!’ was all that she was minded to say.
Her phone clattered on the hall table, and she scurried to turn off the main house lights; the plug-lights on their timers, that she used in the hours of darkness, were already on. The man would find his way to her…
♥
Tony noticed that the back door was ajar as he turned the corner of the house, the narrow garden pathway lit in a blaze of the security light that went off as he had stepped inside. The kitchen door was son closed and locked.
‘Beth?’
‘In the bedroom…down the hall!’ came her nervy reply.
A distinct floral scent reached him as he saw Beth move. He gasped as the small bedside light revealed her to him, Beth’s nightdress but a skein of see-through cloth to cover her buxom figure that the clothes, he had seen her in at lunch, had only hinted at. She might just as well have been naked. He had time to see her stroke the fingers of one hand over her belly and down between her thighs as a beginning to her lover’s touches and massaging of her pussy.
He felt his prick strain against the lounge pants he’d decided on wearing, along with a sweatshirt, both easy to have her strip off him, if he didn’t beat her to it. His pulse raced and he rushed to close the space between them.
His arms soon held Beth to him and brushed his lips over her throat, nibbled kisses to her earlobe, his kisses making her shiver and then half-turn in his questing embrace and meet his deeper, hungering kisses.
‘I can be yours, here and now…’ Tony held her to him until she threaded her fingers with his and she felt as if her body would melt into his.
‘I don’t give in to wild impulses…never have!’
She gasped through their kisses. She felt his hands splayed over her belly, Tony’s agile fingers soon drifting to where she had touched herself and he now pursued these ways of it with her. ‘I just wanted to be ready for you!’
‘There’s no rush…I just wanted to know if it would happen…could happen between us.’
‘It can…it will! I’ll help you through,’ she said on looking up at him, ‘but, please make love to me…nothing’s to be rushed.’
He wanted nothing more than to know of her and all that she brought.
Tony tore away his clothes as Beth pulled at the skirt of her nightdress and slowly lifted it over her thighs, then belly, revealing more of her body to him. His hands were on her to help, his gasp of longing soon silenced as he buried his face between the tumble of her heavy breasts, his lips soon tugging greedily on her nipples, his hands caressing her buttocks and keeping Beth to him.
‘Yes, believe in it, Tony! It’s happening…I’m here for you…’
‘As I am for you..’
Her nightdress was thrown aside, and she kept his head to her breasts, then slid her hands wonderingly over his toned physique, his body that of a younger man. Obsessive exercise, to forget what was playing out in his life with Alison, the only explanation.
‘This isn’t all about you…it can’t be!’ she cried out, squatting before him and tearing his lounge pants and briefs down over his muscled thighs, gasping as his penis sprung free and brushed her face, his hands soon on her head to guide Beth in her claims, or what he sought of her. ‘Nothing’s off limits…save for one place!’
‘I’m not into that,’ he retorted on hearing her gasp, breathe awkwardly as she licked and sucked on his straining prick. He kissed her upturned face, his hands sliding down over her breasts and lifting them so that weighty flesh could be caressed. He rolled each nipple between his fingers, squeezed on them until she groaned in protest ‘Okay, I’ll stop for now…then I’ll love every other part of you.’
‘Starting with this…’ Beth brazenly took his hand to her pussy as she stood up and coaxed him to fall onto the bed with her, she lying back and desperately pulling on his hair to draw his head down to her belly, then between her legs. ‘Love me out with your tongue…your fingers…mouth, not that prick of yours…or not yet!’
His fingers and tongue soon swirled and dipped into her slicked folds, soon teased the bud of her clit, her body trembling from this assault on her senses, the devotion that he paid to her thighs and belly. She gripped his shoulders and bucked her hips to meet the claims of his agile fingers and flickering tongue, her restraint seduced away.
Tony moved to kneel beside her, and she reached for his arcing prick with one hand as he bent over her and caressed her body, his fingers moving from her slicked pussy lips, over her body before his mouth closed over her breasts, his lips tugging on her nipples.
‘I love what you have for me…’ He felt her gush as his mouth and fingers brought her on, Beth’s hand working him relentlessly.
‘And you have such a beautiful cock. It feels so hot and hard. I want to feel it in me. Let me do some of this in my way!’
‘Ina moment…in a moment,’ he rasped, Beth’s ways arousing the gnaw of longing in his belly, the urge to be taken to her.
The more he fingered her pussy, or flickered his tongue into her, his fingers parting her pussy lips, the faster Beth bucked her hips to meet his claims, his fingers sliding between her butt cheeks and pressing the base of her spine. Her pussy’s lips had slowly opened, and he knew she was ready for him, but Beth kept pulling on his hair and pulling him down to her hot sex.
‘Do that some more…eat me out!’ she cried out to him, meeting his smile in response to the brazen language she now used on him, ‘then let mo do some of this in my way!’
He moved and kissed her. ‘You can do that now and I can see the wonder of you…’
‘Enough of your soft words..’ she laughed out even as they rolled over and she tugged on his penis, stroked it over her moist slit and pressed the hooded tip to her opening, knelt so that she could settle on that shaft of flesh, her movements deliberately slow so that he could stretch her and she could take it deeper and deeper until he was fully buried in her sweet heat, her muscles contracting on him as a slow ride began.
She couldn’t stop; slithered and tamped on him, leaning forward to brush her nipples over his chest before leaning back and feeling his penis caress and stretch her. Tony kept his hands on her hips and did not stop the mesmerising sway of her wonderful breasts, their skin pale and her nipples springing out from darker skin. Her hot breaths were on his face, a dazed look in her eyes as she breathed sharply in her efforts.
‘Beth!’ he yelled as her wrenching claims brought him to the edge and he clenched his muscles to stop from flooding her. What Beth now performed on him overwhelmed the senses.
She bent again to kiss him, brushed her nipples over his chest as she pushed fingers between them to feel how she was impaled on him, her movement stretching him, her muscles tugging on his swollen prick as best she could.
Tony gripped her hips and pulled Beth down on him, hard, before e relenting; the act of loving fiercely purposeful, his fingers teasing her pussy lips as she rode him. ‘Yes…go on, fuck me deep, Tony. I’m here for you!’
He rolled them over, yanked a pillow from under her head and pushed it under Beth hips. Kneeling between her thighs he thrust in deep, slammed into her, was again enthralled by the sight of her neath him, her wails of dismay at the frenzied act of loving, or fucking as she’d asked, like a drug; a woman’s words of encouragement not heard for a long time; the yank on his driving prick too much to bear.
‘You’re so big, Tony! Let it all go in me! Let it all go!’ she cried out, shuddering in her climax, raising her legs about his waist and holding them at the ankles, then her hands pinching his hips as she felt him shudder, the spurting streams of his release searing into her. She bucked her hips once more, dragged on him with her failing strength to meet his frenzied, final tamping strokes. He wanted to lose all of it in her, the raw emotion that he had to live through and, until now, having no means of release or reprieve.
He couldn’t stop and gazed down into her upturned face, felt Beth arch her back as he withdrew to the edge before slamming back in while his penis was still hard, sought to go as deep as he could, go harder than before u.
‘No more…I can’t take it any more Tony!’ she yelled before groaning, shivering as she felt him withdrew, the caress of his penis almost too much to bear. Yes…rest…rest beside me, I need that after what you’ve brought to me.’
She touched her wet folds, pushed fingers into her pussy and shivered. It felt as if his taking of her had tormented every cell in her body, and she was relieved to feel him lie down beside her.
‘You’ll mend me…I’ll let you be the one.’
She met his look across the space between them, and moved to lie on her side, her head propped on one hand as the other slowly caressed his body, stroked his flaccid flesh that was slicked with their juices.
‘We’ll see, Tony…we’ll just have to wait and see.’
She again felt conflicted, the offering of comfort in these tempestuous and wonderful ways jarring against her sense of propriety, her intrusion, at his behest, into a marriage under unimaginable strain.
He met her kiss before Beth nestled against him, his renewed touches to her breasts not keeping her from turning off the bedside light.
‘I’ll stay a while longer,’ he murmured drowsily.
‘Yes, I want that. What we’ve shared is not going to be a one- off moment, is it? I don’t want that.’
♥
They had fallen asleep, but Tony was woken to feel her hands, and then mouth, on him once more, Beth’s hands and breasts weeping over his chest as she wrapped moist lips around his length.
‘This, before you have to go…it’s nearly five, Tony, but I can’t let you go…not just yet.’
‘I could get to love these early wake up calls…’
Beth laughed softly as he pulled her on top of him and she soon lowered her wet pussy down onto my throbbing penis. From their earlier times of fucking, and in her renewed arousal, she was loose and wet, Tony slid in with little or no resistance.
‘I love how you kiss and touch them!’ She gasped as his hands gripped her swaying breasts, his claims to them no hindrance to the frenzied rut that they again pursued, their shared moments of orgasm seeing him spurt his seed over Beth’s belly, she bending down to stifle her cries of passion and gratitude for what had again been discovered. She gasped and moaned as he took her, Beth uttering her demands incoherently as her hands gripped his chest and had him take her in this, her preferred ways.
Finally, she slumped down on him, felt the clammy wetness of his sperm on her belly and Tony’s as he held her tightly for these last few moments.
‘Let it be me,’ she whispered against his lips, ‘whenever you need moments of comfort?’
‘I don’t know when it will all end…are you sure?’
‘No,’ she answered over trembling lips, ‘but I don’t want to think of you living alone and me being here and not offering the distraction and comfort that you need. What you’ve shared with me reveals how it is…how it is inside you, here, and here…and even…here.’
She had touched his face, his chest at his heart, then, his long flaccid prick that she now held gently, wonderingly. The man she kissed and comforted, such as their tempestuous rut had succeeded in that, could not be shut out of her life or kept at the margins.
Too much had happened between them, already, for her to consider the likelihood of that ever happening.
♠