COMFORT
The Saunders sisters were on holiday, unencumbered by what they had, some months ago, chosen to confess to each other. It was the restraining influence of husbands and, also, in each case, their children. Divorced, they were now free spirits, each of them quick to smile when they could feel confident in those they met, at home or here in their chosen holiday resort, their upmarket hotel perched on a clifftop overlooking the Aegean Sea and the beach not so far below them. The village and its meandering walkways were all around them, the blue sky above in stark contrast to the searing brilliance of the whitewashed houses.
At this time, early afternoon, the poolside was crowded, but the object of their shared attention now seemed to be making his way through the scattering of sun loungers and to one that was free and not so far from where they stood, their hips brushing the railing as they turned to look his way.
"We won't fight over him, will we, Laura, if it goes that far?" Dorothy murmured as she felt her sister move away, and their bodies were no longer in close contact. They had exchanged polite pleasantries with the man last night, when they had met for drinks before dinner on the terrace, unsure of what they could get into with the tall, deeply tanned, glacially white-haired stranger who was an executive of some kind and who had been happy to talk and yet give nothing away.
Perhaps he had sensed what they meant to each other.
In recent months, they had fallen into rediscovering the bond that had kept them so close in the years before the conventional ways of those in their lives, and who they met, persuaded them to resist the claims, emotional and physical, that they each made upon the other. What happened behind closed doors stayed that way.
"No, darling sis. We've had years to be apart and live as others would want us to. We won't fight over him and, instead, enjoy what we can of our time here...and with him, if that is where the look he has given us, again, takes us."
The stranger with his glacially white hair and tanned skin, his white beard stark against the skin of his lean face, smiled and gave a curt wave in greeting.
"Hello again!" Dorothy called out to him over the short distance between them and felt Laura's fingers brush her back before stepping away from her. "Is your workday over?"
"Yeah," he answered with a sigh, but smiling at them both. "There's more work to do than I had reckoned on, so I'll be staying on a while longer. At least I can set the hours I put in and enjoy what this place has to offer."
The woman met his appraising gaze upon them and continued.
"I got to thinking today that I never introduced myself last night. I'm Larry Taylor...from Boston."
"We thought as much after we had met, and you told us what you do...for work. It must play havoc with home life...your family back home."
Laura stopped talking and sensed that Dorothy was equally stunned into silence as they watched him shrug off a white collarless shirt that he had chosen to wear with white, drawcord, lounge pants of thin cotton. Now, the man they had wondered about stood before them in azure-blue swimming shorts that gripped his legs and shaped him, deliberately so or not. What a sight he would make once Larry got out of the pool and those wet shorts became like a second skin. He appeared only too handsome, hypnotic, and strong.
Larry lingered before them for a moment longer.
"There's no family. I'm divorced and went through all of that a couple of years ago. The work I do, travelling around to check on holiday places for a tourism company, kept me away, and things got complicated between us."
He would leave it to the women before him to believe what they wanted about what had happened. Since first meeting them, he had wondered about them too, about women who looked so alike that they had to be sisters, even twin sisters with their slender bodies, flat tummies, and somewhat scrawny arms that were tanned, their ash blonde hair tied back from slender faces and with one having tied her hair back into a tight bun while the other in a ponytail gathered in a tortoiseshell hair grip.
His imagination ran riot for a moment or two; he allowed that to happen, as he remembered seeing them yesterday by the pool, just as they were now, their bodies oiled up and the swell of their still pallid breasts held in small triangles of cloth, like a yacht's spinnaker filled with wind, and their skimpy bikini briefs covering a smooth, hairless mound.
His tumbling thoughts, as he had gazed at them and the women seeming not to be bothered by his attention upon them, had set him wondering if they were into each other, at their ages, and after an eventful life. He might get to hear about that if he chooses to seek their company. His private life was not cluttered by loyalty to anyone else, not now, and he took how the two women were as being in the same place and, so, seeking each other's devotion and comfort.
"We were about to order some drinks," Laura ventured. "We could order one for you...for after your swim."
"Good, but put it on my tab...room thirty, uhm...."
"Laura, and I'm here with my sister, Dorothy."
"We meet properly, at last...Laura...Dorothy." He smiled and shrugged. "Well, a swim...do a few lengths and get the day out of my system. A drink sounds like something to look forward to..."
"And our company, Larry..."
"Laura!" Dorothy said with a laugh of dismay at her sister's forwardness.
Larry smiled and gazed quickly around, but no one paid them any attention. "It's okay, Dorothy, we can each follow the road of opportunity and see where it takes us."
Before they could answer or understand what the link to an old song might be, he took a few quick steps and dove into the still waters of the pool.
"He's a quick one," Laura ventured, and followed Larry's progress as he swam the length of the pool effortlessly.
"And I don't think he'll want to wait too long before we learn so much more about each other, sis," Dorothy replied and followed Laura's gaze. "One of us had better order the drinks..."
