Strange Relationship

Prologue

I can still remember the time I first fell under Ben's spell.

My daughter, Jodie, had been out celebrating her eighteenth birthday in Sheffield. The next day she'd gushed endlessly about a young man she'd met, and she refused to go out for two days because he'd promised to call. He did, despite the number of times her father and I said he wouldn't. But he did, and she met him for a couple of dates before we got fed up of hearing about him and demanded that she bring him home for us to meet.

It was when he walked through the door and smiled, a boyish smile from beneath a blonde fringe. It was the intensity in his eyes that I remember most from those first few seconds. "Nice to meet you, Mrs. Young," he said in a quiet but purposeful voice. I had to stop myself from telling him to call me 'mum' even then. I think I managed to stammer out, 'call me Caitlin, please' or something to that effect. But there was a sparkle in his eyes that couldn't be hidden by any amount of shyness, or his fringe, and it was that sparkle that took my breath away.

After the accident I watched their wedding video endless times. It was the only video I had with Jodie and her father on. Ben looked so handsome in his pale grey suit, his arms encircling my only child with such strength and such tenderness. I'm sure I must have thought about what it would be like to be in those arms even then, to have those scintillating eyes locked on mine.

The only time that I've seen those eyes without their trademark glitter was at the funeral, when I buried my husband of 20 years and he buried his wife of just one. The car accident that killed Jodie and her father brought Ben and I closer; we were all we had. My family is all in Ireland, where I am from originally, and Ben's family are scattered around the country. We're both only children though, so without siblings or parents to draw comfort from we helped each other.

It's been a year since the funeral, so although we both still miss our partners, the pain has eased and life returned to normal, as people promised it would through those difficult months. They told me to keep a diary, record my thoughts, so that I could acknowledge them and move on, and that helped too. I didn't feel like working after my husband's passing, and as the insurance more than provided for me I mostly help out in the community, at the church and fundraisers for the local hospitals, and so on. Ben stayed in his job, knowing he was helping others even though he was going through a rough time; he works with young offenders, in particular helping their rehabilitation.

My problem now is my sex life. My husband was never that adventurous, and once we had Jodie it dwindled to once a week, lights off, missionary position. I can't remember the last time I had an orgasm with him before his passing. I'm cursed with a high sex drive and an active imagination; it's a good thing that I learnt how to masturbate when I was young. It's not the masturbation that bothers me, I'm not one of those people who thinks that masturbating (particularly at my age) is wrong. It's just that whenever I feel the need, no matter what I start off thinking about, I never orgasm until I start thinking about Ben.

One

It was a Saturday morning in early May, and Caitlin could see the sun streaming through a crack in the curtains. Her alarm clock told her it was just after nine. She smiled and stretched out her arms above her head in an effort to shake a little of the lethargy out of her body. She knew she should get up, but she did like a lie-in at the weekend. She thought she'd give it five more minutes, and curled up in a ball with her hands between her knees.

She tried to work out her itinerary for the day. She was going to have to go shopping at some point, because she knew the freezer was all but empty. She'd recently over-come her fear of getting into a car again, a problem since the accident, and she was going to find herself a runabout. Her son-in-law Ben had promised to help with that when he'd been to football, and she was looking forward to their shopping trip together. She smiled at the little white lie.

She was just looking forward to seeing him, full stop. She'd seen him most days since the funeral and when she wasn't actually with him, she spent most of her time looking forward to seeing him. They had become very close, like best friends. They talked all the time. She knew, for example, that a couple of times he'd been asked out on dates since the funeral, and each and every time had declined the invitation. They told each other everything. Oops, she though, there's another lie. I've never told him how crazy about him I am.

Since the first time her daughter brought him home she'd suspected she had a crush on him. There was something in his eyes that made her want to give herself to him totally. She would be with him, staring into his eyes, and she would realise he'd stopped talking and was waiting for an answer, and she'd have absolutely no idea what he'd just said.

It would be about one when he got back from football, and he'd promised to take her to look at cars straight after. There was an element of planning in that, because she knew he would literally come straight after football - still in his shorts and needing a shower. He had the most perfect legs she'd ever seen. More than once she'd masturbated in her bedroom while he was in the shower next door. There was never a danger of getting caught, because she only needed a couple of minutes to bring herself to a shuddering orgasm at the thought of him. Whether she dreamt of joining him in the shower, or surprising him with a blowjob the second he stepped in the door, the result was always the same.

She could feel that familiar heat from between her legs. She thought she would have plenty of time to take care of herself, so she rolled over onto her back, sliding her white silk nightdress up as she did so. She cupped her pussy in the palm of her hand as she decided which fantasy to select...

She went for the kitchen fantasy, always a favourite. In it, she is doing the washing-up at the kitchen sink when Ben comes in from football. He has on his shorts and a baggy sweat top. His legs are muddy and he reeks of sweat, but he is elated because the team he is captain of has won.

He walks in the back door and shouts a greeting. She shouts one back and announces that she is in the kitchen. When he walks in, he is smiling broadly. His blonde hair is matted with sweat and she can see blood above one eye. He greets her with a kiss on the cheek as he would normally, before fetching a carton of orange out of the refrigerator. She asks about the blood and he laughs, saying that he had a good tussle with the opposition's centre-forward, which he won.

When he kisses her she can smell the sweat on him. She loves the smell of sweat; it's so masculine. They exchange pleasantries for a few minutes while he drinks the orange juice. When he's done with it, he walks over to put the glass in the sink where she is still doing the washing-up. She turns her head when he comes over and their eyes lock. It's at this time he realises how hungry she is for him, how desperate and frustrated she has been. Her arms, still in rubber gloves, go around his neck and their lips meet.

She is smaller than him and has to stand on tiptoes to return his embrace. Their kisses are deep and passionate, and very soon his tongue is freely roaming her mouth and she id delighted by the intrusion.

He breaks from the kiss, turning her away from him. Her eyes close as her head goes back against his chest. He leans in to kiss her neck, but the kisses are rough and soon turn to bites. She loves it, loves the pain, loves it when he is rough with her. He grabs at her skirt, hoisting it up before starting to rub her pussy through the gussets of her knickers and tights.

She feels her hole moistening at the attentions of his hand. He uses the other to start pawing at her breast, pleasing himself, hardly considering her needs. She opens her eyes and looks down at her body, but he pulls her hair sharply and drags her head backwards. She starts making noises that become quiet pleas to be taken. Somewhere outside her fantasy, she is aware that she is making the same noises out loud. She used two fingers to spread open her pussy lips, allowing clear access to her clitoris. She used two fingers on her clit, roughly, like she imagined he would in her fantasy.

With rising urgency she puts a hand behind her back to try and grab his cock, when she can feel stiffening against her bum. He is indifferent to her attentions and he pushes her head down low over the foamy water in the sink. She has to brace her arms to avoid being pushed face first into it, but as it is her shoulder length her still dangles in it, turning the tips from their customary chestnut brow into a glistening black.

Squatting behind her, he starts to rub her roughly through her clothing. She is sodden, and he can feel it through her knickers. He makes out that he is disgusted, which she loves. He takes two handfuls of her tights and stretches the material apart, quickly reaching breaking point. She hears the tear of the material and groans with pleasure as he pulls her knickers to one side. Quickly he puts his face into the space between her legs and she can feel the roughness of his short beard on her thighs and bum cheeks. His tongue seeks out the hot, wet slit of her vagina, but he is frustrated by the angle she is standing at. Without missing a beat, he transfers his attention to her bum hole, roughly licking all around it.

Too late she realises that he is not trying to stimulate it so much as lubricate it, and her breath is taken away as he roughly works a fingers into her anus. He licked all around his finger as it worked in and out of her whole. The pain she felt was beautiful, and she found she was even sticking out her arse to try and take his finger further in. When he realised she was enjoying it, he quickly withdrew it and replaced it with his tongue, which went straight inside her hole. He moved it around in a circular motion while his thumb started to flick away at her clitoris.

Her breath quickened as he masturbated her. She closed her eyes to concentrate on the feeling, before opening them in surprise as he harshly thrust his thumb into her hole. He searched for the g-spot with the ball of his thumb, while his middle and index fingers continued stimulating her clitoris. She could feel an orgasm rising rapidly.

As if determined to stop her from reaching it, he suddenly stopped everything he was doing. She looked round to the side just in time to see his muddy shorts fly across the kitchen and she knew that he had his cock out. She wiggled her ass at him, encouraging him to enter her. He played with himself while he admired the view, stroking himself with long, slow strokes. He took a step closer and began to nuzzle her clitoris with the head of his cock and she braced herself for it entering her.

In a surprise move, he thrust his cock deep into her anus with one push. She screwed her eyes up and tried to relax so that she could stand the pain of trying to accommodate his member. He began to work in and out of her, never giving her time to get used to it. Her bum hole was tight and she knew the friction on his cock was having an effect on him. After only a couple of minutes thrusting she could hear him intoning, 'oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah... I wanna come." His thrusts became harder and harder.

Abruptly he stopped and withdrew his cock completely. She knew he was very close and couldn't understand why he'd stopped. He showed her immediately by pulling her upright using her hair and spinning her round by the shoulders, before pushing down on the top of her head until she fell onto her knees. She smiled and then opened her mouth, reaching up to take hold of his cock. He knocked her hand away and then took a fistful of her hair, pulling her head back so hard she had no option but to kneel there with her mouth open. He started to pump away at his cock with his free hand.

She could see the pre-come leaking from his slit and she looked forward to receiving a mouthful of his hot, salty come. She stole a hand between her legs and managed to make contact with her clit without him noticing, but in truth his attention was fully focussed on himself. He moaned several times before a loud grunt, and his hand stopped. Thick, white sperm flashed across the gap between his cock and her face, splashing her face, landing on her cheeks, her lips, her neck, her tongue. It was her turn to moan loudly as she brought herself to a thundering orgasm as the sperm dripped into her mouth and she lapped it up.

She lay there in the afterglow of her orgasm, listening to the hustle and bustle of the world outside. She could hear children playing, dogs barking and car doors slamming. She shut the noise out and thought about Ben. She was so attracted to him, but she did not dare tell him. She would never, ever tell him how she felt about it. She would die of embarrassment if he ever found out about her feelings, or her fantasy sex life for that matter.

She loved her late husband, Matthew, but she knew also that she had never been truly happy with regards to their sex life. She had a wild imagination and a high sex drive, and neither of those things had been satisfied by sex with Matthew. She sighed as she wondered if she would ever have sex again. Was that really it? At forty-two, was her love life really over? She knew it shouldn't have been. She was small at five and a half feet tall, with a slim figure inherited from her mother, and a full head of chestnut brown hair. She could pass for a woman some years younger than her real age, but could she be bothered with dating again? What she needed was someone she knew, someone she cared about and who cared about her. Someone like Ben.

They met up later that day, as planned. He greeted her with a kiss on the cheek, as normal, and complimented her on the way she looked, which again he always did. She scrutinised his words more closely than usual, looking for a hidden meaning. Did he truly like the way she looked, or was he just being polite? Was there any masked depth of feeling in the kiss? She told herself not to be silly.

He patiently drove her around several car dealerships without her ever really making her mind up about what she wanted, or indeed having an idea about what she was really looking for. She thought she out to buy something practical, just an economical little runabout with good mileage, but what she really wanted was something completely the opposite - something fast and sexy. She had no idea where these thoughts were coming from. When she thought she sensed Ben becoming a little weary of her indecisiveness, she offered to take pay for tea somewhere, which he politely declined. He must have seen that she looked slightly dismayed.

"I'm a bit sticky from traipsing around in the sun all afternoon. Tell you what, I'll nip home and get a shower and get changed, then I'll come up after and we'll get something to eat at your house. You can cook for me, to make up for having to follow you around all day?" He laughed. She bit her lip for a moment before replying.

"Are you sure? Wouldn't you rather be out with your friends on a Saturday night?"

"Boring bunch, they're all married and won't come out now!" A cloud seemed to pass over them at the mention of marriage. Ben was the first to buck up. "Look, I'll call at the video shop on the way round and find something to watch. Something cheerful, eh?" She smiled, and they agreed that he would be around about eight.

As it was, it was half past when he got there, having struggled to find a comedy film that he thought they would both like. He wanted to watch something gross, but he was sure she wouldn't find anything like that funny. He'd also bought a bottle of wine for her, which he presented with his usual kiss. There, she thought, did he just linger a little longer with the kiss, like he was trying to smell my perfume, or something?

She knew he liked chicken, so she'd prepared a chasseur for themselves. He'd brought a period comedy, something quite highbrow and intellectual that she laughed all the way through. He caught himself thinking how pretty she was when she laughed, but quickly snapped out of it. The meal was excellent and the wine quite strong, so by the time the movie finished they were both quite tired. She asked him if he wanted the spare room, and then immediately worried about how it sounded to him. Did it sound like a veiled come-on? She told herself to stop being silly, he'd stayed over many times in the spare room. When he accepted he didn't look as though he thought anything was untoward.

She tidied up in the kitchen, listening to him plod about upstairs getting ready for bed. She thought she might have to stay downstairs until he was asleep - she didn't know if she could trust herself not to go and climb in with him (actually, she wasn't sure she wasn't going to do that anyway even if he was asleep). Before she knew what she was doing, she found herself at the bottom of the stairs, asking if he wanted a drink bringing up. A quick 'yes, please' by reply started her pulse quickening.

She was in her housecoat when she took him a glass of milk in. He was already in bed, and as she entered the room she caught sight of all his clothes - including boxer shorts - over the back of the chair, and she felt sick with desire when she realised he must be naked under her sheets. She set the milk down on the bedside table, and, managing not to look at him, asked if he wanted anything else.

"Do you still miss them?" came his surprise reply. She was taken aback, and had to swallow twice before she could formulate an answer.

"Yes, of course," was the best she could manage. She thought about it for a second before perching modestly on the edge of the bed. He was on his right side, facing the edge of the bed she was sat on. She had her back to him, but was half-turned to face him. "I do miss them, and of course I still love them, but after this length of time it becomes a different sort of feeling."

"I know what you mean. It's like when United sell a player. You miss the player, and you still look out for his new team's results, but you realise that things move on and that nothing ever lasts forever. Old players go and new ones are signed, but the main thing is life goes on." She laughed at his analogy, but she knew exactly what he meant and she nodded in agreement.

There was a pause, a pause in which she though things could go one of two ways. She could either stand up and say goodnight, and walk out of the room knowing she had missed a chance. Or, she could turn round, bend over and kiss him softly, on the lips, and wait for his reaction. What he said caused her to taste the bright, metallic tang of panic.

"Caitlin, do you miss sex?"

She was paralysed. She could not breathe, and she certainly could not turn around to look at him. She stared at her hands, wringing together in the soft glow of the bedside lamp, while minutes passed. She heard his soft breathing and tried to calm herself, convinced he would be able to hear her heart thumping behind her ribcage. She glanced around the room, desperately trying to work out his intentions for asking the question. Was he making a move on her? She tried to think of a non-committal answer that might steer the conversation to safer waters.

"Why do you ask?" She said softly, in her fading Irish accent.

"Do you remember Thursday night? I spoke to you on the phone?"

"That's right, you said you'd got a re-arranged match and would it be okay to go out in the afternoon rather than the morning."

"What else did I ask?"

She racked her brain to try and remember what else they'd talked about. Come on Caitlin, think! She shook her head.