Taking a careful sip from the oversized mug cradled between his palms, John Elliott sighed in contentment as he gazed out through the opened kitchen door. Freshly brewed coffee and a chance to drink to the last drop without any interruptions or distractions from his noisy, playful, demanding twins. Heaven!
He was on his first real vacation in nearly seven years and he'd already vowed that it wouldn't be his last. The business was doing well; it was time he enjoyed the fruits of his labour. A few noses had been put out of joint when he had announced that he was taking a three-month vacation and leaving Carl, the second youngest of his bus drivers, as Office Manager. One of the other drivers had sniggered knowingly, but John had refused to acknowledge the inference that the openly gay young man was more to him than just an employee. It was a business he had worked hard to turn around. He couldn't afford to be sentimental—if he left any of the others in charge he would constantly worry that things weren't running smoothly. Carl was resourceful enough to handle minor emergencies, but had the acuity to call if a situation arose that needed John's expertise.
The first two days of his break had been tough. Helen, John's wife, should have been off too, but at the last minute her employer had asked her to postpone the start of her leave because the young man they had recruited to cover her absence had had to work a longer notice period than anticipated for his previous employer. And with his seven-year-olds, Tim and Tina, on school holidays but spending a week with his sister Susan, John had had the house to himself. Used to dealing with a dozen or more emergencies daily, he had found it hard to adjust to the slower pace of life and had desperately looked for tasks to occupy the hours. But, by the third day he had gotten the hang of being idle.
Remembering that he hadn't yet read the newspaper delivered that morning, he turned and walked through the house to the living room. The neatness of the room gave him an unexpected pang—the twins were mini tornadoes, leaving mayhem and destruction in their wake—the room seemed sterile without them. Shaking his head to clear the feeling of loneliness, he took the newspaper out of the magazine rack where Helen had placed it earlier and settled into his favourite chair, a wide buff-coloured leather recliner.
"Is there any more coffee?"
Engrossed in the newspaper, John started at the sound of his next door neighbour's voice.
"Sure," he replied, smiling across at the West Indian woman as he folded The Times over at the sports section and placed it and his half-empty coffee mug on a small side table and got to his feet.
"No gardening today?" she asked over her shoulder as she preceded him to the kitchen.
"Not today," he responded.
Florence and her husband, Sydney, had moved next door the previous summer, but until last week John had not exchanged more than a dozen words with her. He had once invited Sydney to the local pub for a couple of pints, but finding that he and the man had little in common hadn't extended another invitation.
Helen and Florence on the other hand, had instantly become good friends. The woman had even cut her long, flowing curly locks into a pixie style similar to Helen's. She and Sydney were both half-Black, half-Indian as were many Trinidadian and even in a thick plait down her back, Florence's hair had been a thing of beauty. Loose around her shoulders and flowing down her back, it had been every man's fantasy. Helen had told him that Sydney had not been amused when his wife had cut her hair. Secretly John hadn't blamed the man; he would have been apoplectic himself!
Earlier in the week when he had been in the garden vigorously attacking the weeds around one of Helen's rosebushes, his t-shirt drenched with perspiration, Florence had popped her head over the dividing wall and started chatting.
Now sinking carefully onto one of the sturdy chairs set around the kitchen table she gave a soft sigh. "I shouldn't really be drinking coffee but you make it so well."
"One cup of coffee won't harm you." John reached into the cupboard for a small cup and saucer.
"The house is too quiet without the kids," Florence remarked, taking the cup of sweetened milky coffee from him when he had made it exactly to her taste.
"They have probably exhausted poor Susan." John chuckled. "I was expecting her to bring them back after a day or two, but they seem to be having fun."
His older sister hadn't had a playful bone in her body when they were growing up together, but she was the complete opposite with his children. They absolutely loved her and could barely contain their excitement when he'd told them that she had invited them over for an entire week.
"So it's just the two of us."
John's heart had been beating erratically since he had turned and caught sight of her in the sleeveless, pale yellow dress. It beat even faster at her words.
It was his and Helen's wedding anniversary. Helen had often teased him that Florence had a little crush on him and had jokingly, he'd thought, said that she would ask the other woman if she wanted to sleep with him. He had dismissed the idea that Florence fancied him, but he had felt it each time the woman popped over to discuss plants whenever he was working in the garden. She loved flowers, roses especially, but Sydney who had grown up on a farm didn't see the point of planting or growing anything that wouldn't bear fruits or be eaten in some form.
Sydney worked long hours and spent most of his leisure time travelling around the country with his domino club.
Florence was a bored housewife—a heavily-pregnant, bored housewife.
John just happened to be a man who adored pregnant women—bored or otherwise.
He had enjoyed Helen's pregnancy. She was usually on the slender side—a trait shared by both her parents, her three brothers and her much-younger sister—but she had bloomed during pregnancy. Her breasts, in particular, had surprised him completely by going up several cup sizes and becoming even more delicious to fondle and suck on.
The twins had thankfully not been large babies, but carrying two babies instead of one had been tough on his petite wife. He had insisted that she stopped working six months into her pregnancy and though she had protested vehemently she had acquiesced when she realized just how worried he had been about her driving to and from work each day in her condition. Bizarrely—well, bizarrely because it seemed contrary to what most women experienced during pregnancy according to the pregnancy books they had read—Helen had been in an almost constant state of arousal. He had often come home in the evening to find her eagerly waiting for him. He'd often had to eat her and then his dinner.
They had hoped for more children after the twins, but it hadn't happened yet. They were largely content, blessed with a child of each sex, but they had planned on having four or five children when they had first married. They had discussed IVF when the twins were three years old and Helen hadn't fallen pregnant again, but mutually agreed that it wasn't for them. It seemed selfish to want more children when there were couples who had none, but they both prayed for at least one more child.
"Another two and a half months to go." Florence gave a long sigh and placed her hand on her distended stomach.
"Aren't you enjoying the pregnancy?" John asked, surprised. She seemed content enough, constantly stroking her stomach softly, looking dreamy as she hummed to it under her breath.
"Yes I am, but I don't think Sydney is very much."
"Are you sure?"
John and the man might not have much in common, but surely their tastes could not be so dissimilar. Surely the man could not think that his wife was anything but beautiful.
