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..."
Dorothy wrapped her body in a soft, multi-coloured, cotton swim wrap and sauntered off to the poolside bar. Laura had always been the more 'brazen', or forward, of the two of them and she would go along with al that might follow their meeting with an attractive, and only too confident, man.
♥
"You're staring at both of us," Laura said, provocatively, with a deep, soft, and suggestive laugh. "Are you trying to decide which one of us you prefer?"
"Yeah, I guess I am. Sorry if it disturbs you," he answered, smiling, as he dried off after a long swim. Larry shifted a lounger closer and sat down, soon taking a long sip of his drink that Dorothy handed to him with an approving glance. The woman was flirting with him, and he felt that there was much to delight in as he gazed at them. It had been a while since he had taken a woman to bed, and the two women seated so close were brazen in their interest. "Tell me how much I owe you for these."
"Being in your company and chatting is enough, for now," Laura answered for them both, Dorothy again giving a disbelieving laugh at her sister's directness, but she felt as involved with what was happening between them as Laura.
Some fleshy distraction, with an attractive man, would be welcomed and not interrupt, for too long, the relationship she again pursued with her sister; companionship and understanding prevailing most of the time, and now the thrill of a diversion from that life together that was aroused by meeting an attractive man.
"Let's see where that takes us, then, shall we?" he suggested, lying back and feeling the warmth of the sun on his body. Shoving on a pair of sunglasses, he could feast on how the women looked, and they could do the same with him. If they needed some different attention, then he was willing to give it, and in whichever way that could be pursued, and it would have to be soon.
Both Dorothy and Laura were seated on their sun loungers, sipping their cocktails, the seat back raised and each posing as film starlets might once have done. As they raised their glasses to drink, he noted how the tips of their fingernails were cut square and lacquered in a pale pink; how silky smooth their thighs looked and their slender feet, how the triangle of cloth that covered their shaved sex seemed like a second skin. They weren't giving in to the passing of the years, and Laura seemed the more adventurous and flirtatious of the two of them. She was also more direct in her conversational ways.
"Were you married for long...have kids that your divorce affected?"
"No, not long...about five years, and taking in the time we lived together. And no, there aren't any kids. Marilyn couldn't have them, and I have brothers with kids to carry the family name on. How about you two?"
And so, their exchanges began and they learned of each other; of the strains that no longer being in a relationship had taken on them, the women confessing that they had sustained a bond through their marriages that had begun in childhood.
"We went back to living together," Dorothy finally admitted, "deciding that love and affection might lead to deeper moments, but also that we kept that side of life very much to ourselves. If a man ever broke into what we had, he'd be made to understand the limits..."
"And has a man broken into that?" he wondered, saying it out loud so that they both could hear him. He had reached out and offered a caress to their legs, surreptitious, but the intention behind that touch was only too clear. "I'm on the same track as you, now. No complications but a realization that when you meet someone you're attracted to, you surrender to the moment."
"And are you in that moment now?" Dorothy asked, and she saw Larry take off his sunglasses and meet her look upon him, unwaveringly.
"Yes. Finesse is for those unsure of what to do. I'm not one of those who have those doubts...and...and certainly not where they concern you, both of you." Larry sat up, his drink finished, and he grabbed for his shirt and lounge pants. "Perhaps you'd like to join me for a drink...up in my room?"
