1
Katherine brushed out her straw-blonde hair and checked her makeup for the last time. She felt uncommonly pleased with what she had been told the night before.
The end of the university year had just passed, and her house would have fallen silent. Her student lodgers would all be leaving their small apartments empty and ready for her to clean and redecorate as the need, and her mood, dictated. She had fashioned the one-bedroom apartments, each with its small kitchenettes and a bathroom, out of the rooms that had once formed a three-story family dwelling where she had grown up.
It was not so far from the city's university campus and her rule, of having two female students and a single male lodging in them, was strictly adhered to. It had been so ever since the house had come into her possession following the death of her mother, whom she had cared for over the years, and finally, as a live-in nurse, once Alzheimer's had taken hold.
She had given up a career in the Army to be with her and she now pursued a new career in business administration that she had managed to build a life around and still offer care. She lived well, but her life always felt a little emptier when the students left and she was alone in the house, her apartment arranged in open plan and tastefully decorated in the modern style, of whites and greys, some soft blues and a feminine touch here and there. The courtyard garden was only too easy to maintain and something of a suntrap.
Andrew Fletcher, a post-grad student, and a technical whizz, had asked if he could stay for a few weeks longer. He would lodge for that time and pay her weekly rent as he pursued an internship with a local electrical engineering and infrastructure company. In doing so, he would gain some relevant work experience before moving on.
She was dismayed to think of it, now, as she closed her front door, and she heard the soft bleep of her car's alarm. His request had been quickly agreed to. There would be time to grow accustomed to an empty house, yet she knew that the weeks of the summer vacation would fly by, and she already had names for the apartments written in, but none confirmed as a certainty. She had yet to sift through the applications and that process would not take long, out of fairness to those wanting to live in her place.
She also needed time to get used to the idea that Andy would be in the house with her, their arrangement quite at odds with all that had gone before with others she had taken in. But that was to ignore the effect that the young man had on her, his polite helpfulness, accommodating ways, and easy banter. All of it failed to distract her from what she thought lay behind the look of his eyes upon her when they were together.
She knew that a man's touch was sorely needed. She'd felt that earlier, when the shower water douched over her body, and she had lifted her small, pendulous breasts to wash under them. She had gone so far as to feel her hard nipples as the warm water cascaded over her skin. She had imagined how it would again feel to have a man's touch, even young Andy's, upon her. Wayward thoughts had taken hold as her hands had moved slowly over her body, moving lower and lower as she washed her shaven place. She'd parted soaped lips, as she thought of it before the touches of her middle finger aroused shudders of longing.
'Get an effing grip!' she had muttered. lapsing into an only too common expression from her Army days and as thoughts of him were replaced by the need to get ready for work.
A movement at an upstairs window drew her eye away, for an instant, from the traffic she sought to join, as she prepared to leave. Was it Andy keeping a watchful eye on her?
Whatever next? Could the young man fancy her and he had kept quiet on it for so long?
2
Andy stood at the window and gazed down into the street below. He knew that Katharine would be leaving for work about now. The woman was punctual to the point of obsession; you could almost set your watch by the routine that she followed.
His request, that she allowed him to stay over in the apartment for a few weeks more, had set her back for only a moment. She'd soon let him know that she would be glad to have him around a little longer. The reason for that had not been made clear, but his concern that she would not agree had soon been dispelled.
The pressure was off him now. His student days were done with and hard graft of a different kind awaited him, but he was up for it.
Katharine had seen him. He'd taken in her startled look and saw the sway of her sandy blonde hair as she responded to his wave of farewell before she eased her Mini, with its Union Jack painted on the roof, into the traffic and was soon gone from his sight.
There was no mistake where her loyalties lay. He had seen the photos of her in Army uniform. The woman possessed great posture in her slender, small-breasted body, her uniform fitting her perfectly. He had noticed that her attractive, slender, face was no different, now, from the photos and whether she wore a cap or not. He'd seen the photos of her in Army fatigue trousers and clumpy boots, a green T-shirt shaping her, and all of that along with her somewhat lopsided, toothy grin. He just loved her evident vitality, her looks of no immediate concern.
Katharine's nervy energy kept her slim and her lively personality shone through, livening their dealings whenever they were together. Girlfriends came and went, but not in her house, and through the academic year, just gone. Katharine remained a constant. Jess and Sam, the girls who had occupied the other two flats, had been into each other and so neither of them had been of further interest to him.
He wanted to make his way with Katharine, somehow and while he lived under the same roof as the engaging woman. She was no raging beauty but with a personality to hook him. Katharine had said that work would soon be started on cleaning out the other flats and that painting them would then begin.
'Are you doing that by yourself?' he'd gone and asked her, last night when she had agreed to him staying on.
'Yes, of course, I am...who else do I ask unless I pay them?'
'I could help you Kath, I've no plans for the weekend. I've already taken some of my stuff home... to my folks' place, so I'll be around to help if you needed it.'
He'd seen her hesitate. Katharine had been surprised by the offer of help, no mistake. She must have taken to wondering, he surmised, what might be the reason for him doing that. But, she had seen the practicalities of any such arrangement for she spoke of it.
'It goes quicker with two doing it, and I can get the places ready for the next year's students. The applicants will want to see them, spot on and clean.' She had soon nodded agreement to what he had proposed. 'Yes, help me...and I get some company in doing that work. The others have left, and the place always feels quiet over the summer and it always feels strange after all that's gone on before. What you've asked changes all that, Andy.'
He stepped away from the window and checked that he had everything. It wouldn't do to be late for his introduction day at his work placement. It was Friday. The weekend stretched out before him. He had no intention of spending it alone, the hungering feeling that possessed him, and new and engaging company, had to be dealt with, or a start made at the very least.
Last night his eyes had taken in the look of a different woman on hearing what she had said. They might not feel alone for much longer.
