"Let's meet up for a tea and a chat before too long," she had stated in her lilting Liverpudlian accent before stepping off the platform of my double-decker bus the week before. As I had driven off, she had turned and waved, the gaze of her arctic blue eyes locking enticingly onto mine...
I knew in that moment she was trouble. I knew that because I was as weak morally as my lusts were strong. Dangerous. Exciting. A moth to a flame.
A couple of weeks later I was in the changing rooms of the
Heights Leisure Centre
in Sandown having swum a mile followed by about forty-five minutes luxuriating in the sauna, Jacuzzi, and steam room. I was glowing and felt really relaxed.
Once I had got dressed, I took my mobile out of my backpack and switched it on. There was a pause before the message alert sounds. It was from Claire.
Pop round for a cuppa when you're ready x
I had told her I was off to the Leisure Centre earlier.
Claire was the ex-wife of one of my colleagues, Christopher. They had got divorced after she ran off with someone else. It had broken his heart at the time, but the truth was that he was a player himself. Her new relationship, however, didn't last and despite having had a couple of boyfriends since she was now single. She was physically attractive, easy going and in possession of a good sense of humour - temptation was never so tempting.
I'd replied informing her that I would be about ten minutes.
I picked up my bag, walked out of the changing rooms, dropped my health suite wrist band off at the reception and then exited the building. It was a cold, sunny winter's day but my body temperature was still warm from the heat of the sauna. I'd got into my car, a white
Renault 19
and driven the short distance to her flat which was at the top of a two-storey converted house. I'd pressed the buzzer and after a minute or so she'd answered the door.
"Hi, come in Matt, I've done you some sandwiches as I thought you might be hungry after all that swimming."
"Thanks, I am a little peckish."
She was wearing a tight white T-Shirt and jeans which emphasised her shapely buttocks.
She then invited me to sit down in her plush and spacious sitting room while she went off to make the tea.
"Help yourself to the sandwiches - I take it you like cheese and tomato?"
"I do, thanks."
The act of her preparing food for me made me feel special, wanted even - it had been a long time since Sharon had cooked me a meal - and I was reminded of one of the few occasions when my mother had brought me in honey on buttered bread whilst I had been watching
Robinson Crusoe
on the old black and white television as a young boy all those years ago. I wondered if the root of all my emotional problems had not been feeling loved enough as a child, and maybe not feeling loved enough in the present.
I'd picked up a sandwich and taken a bite being careful not to drop any crumbs on her meticulously clean sofa and carpet.
Claire entered the room and had plonked down a cup of tea on the small table in front of me. She had settled herself comfortably into the armchair opposite me before saying: "You've been a bit up and down recently what with your father dying. How is it all going with Sharon? Still shaky?"
I'd looked at her and realised that she had put me in mind of Gaby Roslin, the TV presenter. I'd also caught a whiff of her fragrance,
Chlöe.
"Yeah, it's not that good between us, we haven't had sex since the beginning of November, but she did come down to Torquay for my father's funeral. I think we will split up eventually."
"My dad is clear from cancer at the moment, but I do worry about him. We're
very
close."
"That's good and bad, it's good that you love him but bad that you may lose him. My relationship with my father was different, he split from my mother when I was about eighteen months old and then went off and married a German nurse working over at the Ventnor Chest Hospital whom he had got pregnant. I have a faint memory of a man holding me with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth but that's about it... "
"But you got in contact with them, didn't you?"
"Yes, about six years ago I traced them to Torquay and discovered that I also had twin half-brothers, fourteen years younger than me, and of course met my half-sister who is three years younger than me. His wife made me feel very welcome, but he couldn't face seeing me though he did write to me and speak on the phone. I always hoped that he would eventually relent and agree to meet, but we never did. He was an odd fellow but highly intelligent - he could rush through and solve the
Times
crossword in double quick time but was lazy and an alcoholic. He had also been in jail for a bit, when he was younger, after smashing windows which his wife reckoned was to do with inner anger towards his parents who had had a greengrocers in Ryde. Funny enough I pass by the old shop most days. Even though he wouldn't see me I used to pop down and visit the rest of the family who were very friendly and kind. Yet, on one occasion he hid in his room when I popped round... "
"He doesn't sound that nice, you were probably better off not knowing him. Would you like another cuppa, Matt?"
"Yes please, two sugars."
A few minutes later she returned with more tea.
I carry on with the tale. "Anyway, back in December, Thursday the 20th to be precise, I got a phone call from his wife telling me that he had died suddenly in the local post office - he was just seventy. She didn't seem upset at all, in fact that morning he had got into an argument from a chap from the council who had been round to arrange the fitting of free double glazing. The agent had left telling him that he would return when my father was in a better mood. As soon as his wife, I suppose she's technically my stepmother, heard that he had died she phoned the fellow up to get him to come round telling him: 'That you won't have any further problems with my husband as he has now died'.
Claire chuckled.
"Between Christmas and the New Year Sharon and I drove down to Torquay for his funeral. There were only eight of us attending: his four children, his wife, his sister and her husband, and Sharon. He had no friends. There was no music or service as his wife couldn't see the point in spending a lot of money on him now that he was gone, and he wouldn't have done on her she said. Strangely my auntie's husband told me that the last time he had seen me was when I was a baby and he had held me in his arms - he had never expected to see me again. The funny thing, Claire, is that I have six cousins across the water in Portsmouth and I have probably passed them in the street at some point without knowing it. After the funeral Sharon and I had a meal with the rest of the family before my half-brother and I scattered his ashes in the garden of remembrance. It was the closest I ever got to him."
"Do you feel sad?"
"That's another odd thing, I thought I would, I was curious about him, and disappointed that I didn't meet him, but I actually feel nothing for him. Nothing at all."
"Do you know what Matt, you're an orphan now."
She picked up the plate and her cup and walked into the kitchen and I had followed with my empty cup. She'd turned her back to me as she had placed the crockery in the sink. As she did so, I kissed her on the back of her neck, whilst drawing in the heady fragrance of her perfume before whispering: "Let's go to bed."
It was a moment of recklessness, madness, and I feared rejection and humiliation but all she said was: "Okay, but we will have to be quick as my daughter is home in half an hour."
We had gone to her bedroom, and both stripped off though I was only half hard at this point. She clambered naked onto the bed where I took in her sexy slim body with small but nicely shaped tits. Claire was probably about five-three and her pubic hair was light brown and closely trimmed. Her skin was quite fair with light freckles on her shoulders and her hair was, straight, shoulder length and dyed blonde.
Blemishes wise she had a small mole on her wrist and a couple of cuties on her midriff. She also had a slightly larger mole on her strong left thigh.
I had taken her in my arms and commenced to kiss her.
"You're trembling slightly," she had stated softly.
"It's a reaction to the swimming," I had replied. But it wasn't, rather it was due to feeling a little apprehensive and guilty. But obviously
not
