CYNTHIA'S LIFE ON THE WILD SIDE
Final part - Cynthia's African Adventure & Cynthia's Ragged Memories
Cynthia brushed out what had once been her ash-blonde hair as she stood before the bathroom mirror and studied her reflection closely. Her flouncy bob cut of silvery grey hair went well with her softly tanned skin. It glowed with health, and her slender face was less drawn than in the days following her return from Kenya and a tumultuous holiday that she and Jeffrey, her husband, had spent there and to be reunited with friends.
She had pursued a tempestuous affair with a local man, known to them from earlier times in the country, and when Jeffrey had been away on a bush trip of a few days. Her lustful, and accomplished, lover had torn away the veneer of propriety that those she associated with, here at home, in England, thought that she lived by.
She knew that her memories of an affair with Jaali Onyango would slowly melt away, but what she had done with him had reignited a flame, one that she thought had been thoroughly damped through the years of her marriage, only to flare up again. She had not been overly promiscuous in her youth but never could deny that she loved to learn from the men with whom she had pursued torrid affairs, no matter how short-lived and disappointing those times may have been in some cases.
Such criticism, or disappointment, could not be said or felt after her nights in Jaali's arms and what he had brought to her, which Jeffrey remained blissfully unaware of.
She knew only too well how destructive and deceitful her behaviour had been, but she had her needs, and Jeffrey would be the last person to understand what it might mean to be in an 'open marriage'. He was happy and satisfied with what they shared; she had discovered, with Jaali, that she wanted so much more before her body did give up on her and she lost for good what Jaali had found so seductive and desirable, a passionate heart beating in a voluptuous and tended body, along with a willingness to throw off the shackles that tied her to an only too ordered life.
"Well, I'm off!" she heard Jeffrey say in his happy way of speaking. "I should be back by six, no later than seven."
He leaned in and kissed her cheek in farewell, one hand giving a squeeze to her bare shoulder. She had yet to get dressed for the day and now sat at her dressing table, in her bra and nicks, as a moisturising cream was smoothed into her skin.
"Do my back before you go, there's a dear," she asked in her somewhat superior tone of voice that she so often fell into using on him. Jeffrey soon did as he was asked, his touch smoothing in the cream as if he was polishing his car rather than as a means of offering a parting caress.
He could be so closed in on himself and there were times when that was the last thing she needed.
"You haven't forgotten that the gate and fence man will be here next week, Tuesday to Thursday, have you? I've written it on the calendar in the kitchen."
Jeffery was seen to hesitate.
"No, I haven't forgotten but I am on another car jaunt on one of the days. I'll hear more about it today."
Cynthia sighed in suppressed frustration. "As long as I know. Viv will need feeding and an endless supply of cold drinks, no doubt, while he's here...you know what tradesmen can be like."
"Viv...Viv? Don't get over-familiar with the man, will you? We never let that standard slip when we lived out in Kenya, did we?"
"No, I know that, but times and people change. I'm adjusting to life back here and it seems to be taking me a whole lot longer than you." She blew him a kiss and turned back to what she was intent on finishing. "Have a good day, darling!"
Her thoughts were already on Viv Somerton.
♥
For a man of just over six-foot-tall Viv was agile, moved with athletic grace, and looked supremely fit. She had seen that much on their first meeting and as she had talked and watched him take the measurements that he needed for his joinery business to make a new pass gate and two lengths of fence that would be erected to either side of it. His company's website shows the range of his skills and many posts by satisfied customers.
"I'll make sure it all matches up with what you already have," he had enthusiastically told her, his deep voice brightening as he spoke. "Your husband is on board with this, is he?"
" Yes, he is, although he leaves all of this sort of work for me to arrange," she chose to tell him. "He's always off meeting fellow car enthusiasts...he's in the Jaguar club, you know, and he devotes a great deal of time to his E-type or he helps others with their cars."
"It's a nice car. So, what do you do when he's away doing that?" he had asked, quite openly, looking up at her even as he worked to make sure he had all the measurements he would need and taking pictures on his iPhone.
"I have my art...I'm a member of the local art club so I draw and daub. There's also this place, the garden mostly, to look after when I'm not catching up with friends, as I am today, so...."
"So, you want me out of the way. I'm done..."
"I'm not in that much of a rush, Viv...may I use your name like that? I know that we've only just met." She spoke lightly and flirted with the man before her. His polo shirt, with a company logo embroidered on it, hugged his broad chest and revealed toned, muscled arms. Viv was only too easy on the eye.
"It's fine by me, Cynthia," he smiled wonderfully and using her name for the first time, his dark eyes, brown she thought, smiling too and his gaze upon her unwavering, even if it did not last for long.
She had wanted to talk and had become deeply engaged with the man before her, liking very much what she saw of him. It would be quite an adventure to have his attention upon her and to ease her back into ways quite different from what she had sampled in Kenya and with Jaali.
Viv Somerton, of Somerton Bespoke Joinery, would be telephoning them to say that he was ready to do the work she and Jeffrey had commissioned him to undertake, a price agreed and a down payment for the timber needed already banked.
"He wastes no time," Jeffrey had opined, somewhat sourly, but the man had engaged her attention upon him more and more.
She could develop a taste for men such as Viv, but living where she did the chances of that were agonizingly few and the risks too great to contemplate. But Viv had entered her life and she would see where that took her...took them, perhaps.
Viv was younger, fitter, and better looking than Jaali, and his appraising looks upon her, as they talked, had been more discreet than she had ever known of them with Jaali. But, those looks were there for her to take note of, dressed as she was in a sleeveless summer dress with a pattern of colours so reminiscent of what she had seen a month or so ago when in Kenya. The bodice shaped her figure, squashed her breasts, and made them look flatter and rounder, and her slender legs ended in stylish ankle boots. She was dressed to go out, not to engage his attention upon her. And yet, it had happened.
Her Kenyan holiday and trysts with Jaali had, it seemed now, after weeks of reflection on what had happened between them, opened her eyes to what was, or could, play out around her, and that she had not seen; or her defence mechanism, somewhere in her brain, had closed out.
But now, and after all that she had been through on that holiday, she would be only too alive and ready for what might, or could, play out with Viv.
♥
The pub was packed, The Greyhound a favourite gathering place on a Friday night and where he knew his mates from the rugby club would be. They never overdid it, not with an early season game scheduled for Sunday.
"Ah, the tyro's here, guys!" one wit called out to him, as he passed the group seated at a table outside in the warmth of a September evening.
"I won't be long," he laughed in reply.
"With our drinks you mean?" another called out.
He waved that away as he sauntered into the crowded bar, taking in the women who moved aside, or their partners did, to make it easier for him to get to the bar.
It had been quite a week at work, not only dealing with assignments in the production line, supervising two apprentices, keeping tabs on the work of his bookkeeper who showed up twice a week, but also attending to last-minute touches for the work that he would be installing for that Cynthia Roberts woman.
He couldn't put a finger on it, but he'd not mind fingering her given the chance and with the rack that she carried so well and not hidden from his approving sight by a colourful dress he had last seen her wearing. So she was some years older than the women he took up with, but she had a winning smile and carried herself so well, that he'd make an exception in her case. By the look of her, she'd know how it went and he was minded to find out if the opportunity came his way.
No, he couldn't put a finger on it to explain just why she'd shown an interest and had wanted to keep him talking. But he had been taken by the sight of her, the sway of her earrings, and how she would put a hand gracefully to her grey hair and sweep it from her slender face.
He dwarfed her, the legacy of weight-training to bulk him up for the game that he loved. He was quick, a runner, and hard to catch when carrying the ball. There were times he had to mix it with an opponent who clattered him outside the rules, so he carried some scars on his face. He wasn't a hard man, he just took care of himself, and he wouldn't refuse to take care of a woman if that was what lay behind the looks that Cynthia had given him.
He was into anyone at the moment, and she was spoken for, but since when did that stop a guy if a woman came onto him? He wasn't about to go asking why. He'd just follow through and hope she knew what the rules were to be if he did that.
♥
Cynthia arrived home from the art club meeting in the village hall. Her work had not gone very well and she felt in a subdued mood. Absentmindedly, pushed the button to listen to voice messages on the house telephone's answering system.
