Gwen was lying on the warm sand of the South Carolina beach as he watched her. She and her husband Ben had flown into Charleston the night before for a brief respite from the cold of a New England late winter. Their flight had arrived late and they saw virtually nothing of the drive from Charleston down to one of the barrier islands to its south. Ben had overcome the short night and headed off to a golf course. His objective for the weekend was to play one or more rounds of golf each day of their planned long weekend.
Ben was an investment banker who had just completed a major transaction and felt badly in need of a few days R&R as he called it, which to him meant golf. Gwen owned her own successful interior decorating business in Boston. Like her husband, she had just completed a major project and was in need of a bit of R&R. All she wanted was to soak up the warm sun of late winter time South Carolina and catch upon her reading of what she called the 'trade rags' a collection of magazines like Architectural Digest that focused on the housing design business. She had slept in letting Ben breakfast on his own and go off in search of a round of golf not expecting to see him until late in the day.
The beach was a part of the long string of soft sand that defined the South East coast of the United States. Their condo was only a few steps from the beach. Gwen was stretched out on a large beach towel her head propped up and a stack of glitzy design mags alongside her that she was ignoring in favor letting her long, lithe, body soak up the warm afternoon sun.
Gwen was unaware that he was watching her, but had she been it would not have been a great cause for concern. Gwen was a stunning looking woman who was used to being watched by men, and sometimes even women. At five ten she had long fashion model's legs, that stopped at a pair of narrow well-muscled hips followed by a narrow waist. Her breasts were relatively small, not showing in most outfits she wore. Her short blonde hair exposed a long thin neck that finished her tall profile. Her breasts definitely showed today however as did pretty much all of her body in the one piece swim suit she wore. It was a thin fabric that clung to her body leaving no doubt as to the firm nipples topping her small breasts. When she rolled lay on her hard flat belly he saw that the suit covered little of her back and even less of her hips. It was cut to well above her hip bones, pinching tightly between her legs leaving most of her narrow hips exposed. It was a swim suit a lot of women would not feel comfortable with, but Gwen was very aware of her body and enjoyed dressing to show it off.
He had been watching her from a lawn chair in the shade of the Palmetto trees just up the beach from Gwen. He wasn't a guest at any of the little group of condos behind the beach, but he owned one of them and had been instrumental in the development of the little project as the owner of the underlying real estate. Now he enjoyed relaxing in a chair in the shade behind the beach on a regular basis. He was probably of average height, and weight, in his mid-forties, his thick hair long and combed back to where it was trimmed just at his neck line, the early grey in it matching the grey in his heavy mustache and goatee.
He and his wife lived in an old antebellum plantation mansion a few miles away on the mainland. Money was not an issue for them having inherited the old plantation and more than enough money to maintain the home and lands around it while they leased out the farm lands. The condos they owned at the beach and at a couple of the local upscale golf courses were an investment funded by development of a few choice pieces of the plantation's large land holdings rented on a short term basis via the resort management services provided by the beach condo project and the golf course projects. They owned a lot of nice land and vacation housing, but the management of those assets was done by others.
His wife was engaged in her favorite hobby today; playing golf on one of the local courses. He had no real interest in golf, preferring to sit near the beach reading a book as he watched the tourists sunning themselves. She on the other hand found the beach incredibly boring preferring the challenge of regular rounds of pick up golf with visiting men at one of the clubs they belonged to. She had found that men who came to South Carolina to play golf provided her with a level of competition the women generally available to her did not. They also provided her with an occasional round of extramarital sex just as he found an opportunity from time to time for a fling with someone he met on the beach. Both were aware of the other's dalliances and accepted them as a part of their relationship.
Gwen and Ben were in a second marriage the first marriage for each of them having ended because of their own misconduct. When they had married they made a point of not expecting monogamy. But because of the nature of their respective work each was discrete in his or her affairs.
After watching her for a good deal of time he rose from his chair, straightened sweat stained ball cap with the long brim on his head, and strolled down the beach until he stood near Gwen, saying in his soft southern drawl, "Good afternoon, Mam. Lovely day for the beach isn't it?" All he wore beside the ball cap and a pair of flip flops was an old, faded swim suit which hung from his narrow hips to a casual mid-thigh level. The curly hair on his chest, like that of his head and beard was beginning to go grey, but the body beneath was trim and well exercised.
Gwen looked up, squinting a bit in the bright sun, as she looked at the stranger. She sized him up before responding, deciding he didn't look dangerous and was in fact handsome in a casual 'non-Boston' sort of way. "Yes it is and judging from your tan you must be a regular here."
"Oh yes. I'm Beau. Beau Chatham." He paused pushing his hat back to scratch his head. "I guess I am kind of a regular. My family's been living in this part of South Carolina for at least nine or ten generations. My wife and I own a plantation near here and we own most of these condos which the owner's association keeps rented out for us. Mind if I sit a spell?"
Gwen rose to a sitting position as she said, "Please do. My husband's off at a golf course somewhere. He's an addict for golf. I just come down here for the sun. I'm Gwen, Gwen Cabot."
"Sounds New England," he drawled.
"Boston, at least ten generations also." Her diction was old new England, Brahmin, clipped and tight without the twang of a Southey or a Mainer.
He leaned back on his elbows looking out at the low surf that was rolling on to the beach. "Boston. Burr. That gets cold, or so I've heard. I try to avoid places like that."
"It depends on what you're bred for," she responded. "Your summer heat would be tough for me. When it gets cold I just wear more clothes. When it gets too hot I can only take so much clothing off." She had reclined again with one leg pulled up and bent at the knee.
Beau took his time responding casually scanning her svelte body and the minimal coverage provided by her swim suit. "Yes, yes. Well of course I understand. You couldn't get by dressed like that in a Boston winter. But... well I'm sure your husband must think it a shame that you have to cover up to tolerate Boston. I think I like you better this way."
"My husband likes me even more when I take this suit off. We do have heat in our homes in Boston."
"Oh of course, of course. I didn't mean to be rude. I just thought you should know how much I appreciate your being here on my beach."
"Your beach?"
"Yes. It's a bit technical but beaches are private here in South Carolina unless the government has bought them from the adjoining land owners. I own the land under these condos so I also own the beach, but of course I do make it available to the condo owners and users. Couldn't do the development without that."
"Sounds like the kind of stuff my husband does."
"Oh what's he do?"
"Investment banking."
"Yeah it's similar. Fortunately I don't do it all the time. I just collect our share of the rents and come down here and meet pretty girls on my beach. Once in a while I find another piece of property to develop. Usually it's a piece I already own that I decide has a better use than farming. But that's work."
"And the farming?"
"Oh I don't do that. I saw how it burned my Daddy up years before his time and decided I wasn't going to do that. I just lease our farm lands out to others who have a taste for that kind of work."
"I see. It sounds like a good life. And what do you and these pretty girls do?"
He chuckled. "Oh mostly we just chat until their husband comes along and then usually I go on home or find someone else to chat with."
"Mostly?"
"Well you know. Sometimes we go back to their condo for a drink or to my place here at the beach and then, well you know, we get to know each other better."
"A lot better I would guess."
"Yeah sometimes. I guess it's one of the benefits of owning the beach."
"And what does your wife think of this? Or do you not tell her?"
"Oh yeah. She knows. I think she actually gets a kick out of hearing the details. She certainly doesn't object, but then neither do I."
He paused for a minute before continuing, "By that I mean I don't object to hearing the details of her brief relationships with some of the men she meets at the golf course."
Gwen understood the open relationship he was describing, but she couldn't resist pushing him a bit. "By that you mean their skill with a putter."
He chuckled, "Oh yeah some of those guys are really good with their putter. Know right where to put it and how to use it if you know what I mean."
"And that doesn't bother you?"
He laughed. "Oh no. Laurie, that's my wife's name, seems to like my putter and what I can do with it just fine. I don't let the fact she likes other styles of putting from time to time bother me."
It had been a couple of weeks since Gwen had even thought about sex. Ben had been busy, wrapped up in his latest of a never ending string of deals, and she had likewise been committed to her own project. Their lifestyle was satisfying as professional success often is for people like them, but it demanded a lot of them and left little time for the kind of close, sex oriented, relationship the stranger was describing. Her latest relationship, with a Boston architect had ended a month ago when the two of them decided there was too much risk. His wife, unlike Ben, was not understanding about such extra-marital activities, or at least she said she wasn't, and the architect didn't want to test that warning. So now as Gwen lay listening to this man describing in his slow southern drawl the kind of relaxed open relationship she and Ben thought they had but seemed to be unable to realize given their need for personal professional success she felt a fire begin in her core. Sure why not she thought?
"And she doesn't mind if your putter is put to other uses you find of interest here on the beach?" Gwen asked.
"Not at all," he responded. "I do believe I have my afternoon available and it sounds like you may too. As an interior decorator perhaps you would like to see what we've done with the one condo unit here that we hold back for ourselves."
