Part 4. Bareback Ride
Chapter 6. A Placid Mare
Our relationship had reached a new plateau. She had stripped fully naked for me. We had had full-on sex. There could be no doubt that there was something going on between us. The question was where it would go from there. But I hardly knew her. And there was the issue of compatibility. She had no interest in children. She revealed very little about herself, and nothing of her thoughts and feelings.
I suspected that she wouldn't be interested in settling down with William and me. She didn't show any interest even in meeting him.
Nor was she the sort of woman I usually went for. She was plain-looking on the surface. I wondered what my increasingly mature son would think of her, given the opportunity to meet her. I hadn't mentioned her to him, which avoided awkward questions. This jumble of thoughts made me feel guilty at using her body.
She was undeniably sexy, when she turned on the charm and tease. Raw casual sex was no basis for a relationship. But I felt a shit for being so superficial about her looks. Perhaps my problem was that I couldn't get to know her inner being. I could not love a body alone.
We didn't refer, or even allude to that store room encounter in the office. I sensed John's constant suspicion after that, every time I talked directly to Sylvia. But she was not coy and she didn't help. She was chattier with me than before, often pointedly excluding john from the conversation. Sometimes she was saucy as well. That didn't go unnoticed. I might have just been staring into thin air. She would say, "are you thinking, or just staring at my boobs?" John would react ostentatiously, whilst my face remained blank. My facial muscles were getting a decent workout, as was my office inscrutability.
Something needed to change. My barely-there 'affair' with Sylvia sputtered along with the occasional sporadic fizz, satisfying neither of us with our risky assignations. My loyalty to her prevented me dating other women. Even when I tried to fantasise about her in bed, my imagination could not conjure up an image of her body. I had mostly only seen it close up, and had only piecemeal reference points
Eventually, I tried to make a clean break. I found a new job, with more money and wider responsibilities. We agreed by mutual decisions not to keep in touch. A tacit line was drawn under our now defunct relationship.
~*~*~
She had boosted my ego, though. I went on the search for a new partner.
I had a boat, moored some distance away on the Broads. I met a young lady through The Times personal columns who fancied older men. We had a fling. But that, too fizzled out because I thought her too young for me. The fact was that no woman had stirred me quite like Sylvia.
Then, one Friday afternoon, my office phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Ah, Simon, I've tracked you down at last."
I knew at once it was her.
"How did you manage that?"
"I got a message to your ex-wife at her employers, asking for your contact details. I pretended it was a work query about an old project. I thanked her politely, of course. She said, 'you're welcome to him.' I think she may suspect something."
"Does that matter? I'm impervious to her jealous threats and tantrums about our son."
"Is your love life prospering?"
"Not much. Being a single parent is damned awkward and inconvenient. Seeing you again might make me feel better."
"Might?"
"Well, it would depend on how much of you I got to see."
"Ha ha, that remains to be seen. I'm going to my stepfathers' farming estate this evening, in Gloucestershire. He and Momma left today for the weekend, and I promised to look after the horses. What are your plans?"
"My wife has William this weekend. She'll bring him back on Sunday."
"Does she do all the driving?"
"Most of it."
"Sounds like a guilty conscience."
"Uhuh, yet I don't feel guilty at all. I drew the short straw moneywise. The only thing keeping my spirits up is thoughts of you."
"So make good on those thoughts and come down there tomorrow. I'll show you around the farm and the woods. "If I'm not at the farmhouse when you get here, I'll be at the stables which you'll see from the house."
Only when I put the phone receiver down did I have any regrets. Why did I flirt like that? I thought I was over her. Nor was her invitation as promising as it might seem. Despite our office flirtations she had hinted at problems with sex after my failure to give her an orgasm. She had later inferred that, once she had allowed me an orgasm inside her, it drew a line under the matter, like a debt paid, or an honour satisfied. I struggled to accept that someone as sensual as she would turn their back on sex. I began to think that I had failed her.
She was becoming more introspective again. She, too, had changed employers, and her new job wasn't working out as well as she had hoped. So I wasn't sure what to expect from a visit to her parents' farm.
Still, I most needed to talk to a willing ear, and getting out of the house for a day was an appealing proposition.
Her parents ran an arable farm, using paid hands to deal with the crop management. They had gone away to Brighton for a romantic weekend. Sylvia's only duties would be to see to the family horses. That much I knew.
Sylvia had spoken very little about home and family life. I suspected that it was a sensitive topic for her. She did not see eye to eye with her stepfather; and her relationship with her controlling mother was strained. She deliberately chose only to go to the farm when they weren't there. It was the horses that drew her there. She was a convenient minder.
I left home early on Saturday morning to drive the ninety miles or so, and arrived there mid-morning. What I encountered surprised me. The farm estate was reached off a single-track road, along a long drive marked 'No Through Road'. It was secluded, well off the beaten track. The drive passed along an avenue of trees bordering arable fields and pastures. But it gave no clue to the grandeur of the farmhouse. Arriving at the large gravel parking and turning area before the main house was like travelling back in time. It was less a farmhouse, and more a rambling mediaeval manor house, set in hundreds of acres of pasture, crops and woodlands.
The farm house looked in parts to be Jacobean, though much adapted over many generations. It was on three storeys, with a higgledy-piggledy roofline of gables, sagging ridge tiles, and dormer windows. The walls were mostly of ancient red bricks held in place by weathered timber frames. Whatever else could be said about Sebastian, his family was old money. I wondered what he saw in Sylvia's mother, whom I knew of only by reputation - Sylvia's views.
There was no answer from the ornate bell-pull chain in the porch. It rang with a school-house tinkle, somewhere inside. I could see the stable yard a little way off from the house. I strolled across to it.
The stables formed an 'L' shape on two sides of the yard with a barn on the third side. One side of the 'L' had four stalls and an open saddling and tack area. It all looked spotlessly clean as I peeked in.
Sylvia was inside saddling and tack area, grooming an apparently contented mare.
"Hi Sylvia, ..."
I had rehearsed my opening line, but the rest of the greeting got caught in my throat. I was literally struck dumb. Her transformed appearance was as unexpected as my first sight of that grand farmhouse. I had seen her naked, and had formed an impression that she had a good body. Yet, that encounter 'on the job', had been so overwhelming on my mind that it left only fuzzy recollections. I had tried many times later to recall her body, and failed, my mind insisting on coalescing my thoughts into images of my wife's less attractive corpulence.
Sylvia had her back to the doorway, brushing down a large, dark brown mare. She was wearing a pair of cream equestrian riding pants, which were stretched tight across her thighs and bottom. The effect was sensational. Its impact far outweighed her tight badminton hot pants. The rest of her body added even further to the stunning effect. Sylvia obviously liked to wear tight clothing, but this was far more fetching than her misguided office apparel. Her bottom was magnificently enclosed and her body outline was a symphony of beautifully flowing lines, from her shoulders to her booted calves.
She turned to face me, smiling broadly. Her riding jacket was buttoned tightly across her bust. It emphasised the shape of her bounteous mammarial delights in a way that her office garb never could. She was clad head to foot in skin tight garb, set off by tall, shiny brown riding boots. Beneath the figure-hugging riding gear, her body looked magnificent and enticing: trim, shapely and alluring.
The whole effect was somehow sexier than past recollections of seeing her naked. I could not comprehend the transformation from the office Sylvia to this vision of feminine magnificence. Never mind the face, that body was sensational. She could have been a model, but for her shy, retiring nature, and that plain face.
Yet her exudation of eroticism was at odds with her diffidence about sex. Why did she feel the need to flaunt it if she could not achieve physical satisfaction? What was the point of flirtation for her?
But that Post Office -worker's maxim about never minding the face didn't apply here. Away from an office environment, her face in this relaxed environment looked far more attractive. When it broke into a smile upon seeing me, it was transformed. It was glowing from her willing exertions in her home environment. She was a different person, utterly beautiful and compelling. I had better mind my preconceptions rather than her face.
She was positively garrulous as she gabbled a welcome and explanations.
"Ah, you catch me on home ground. I was expecting you later. You must be keen! Still, now that you're here, care to ride with me? I've mucked out the stalls and let out the gelding male into the paddock. I've prepared a mare for you. She's called Honey. She's strong but gentle. She won't mind if you don't know how to ride her. She'll show you the way.
My horse is a mare too. They're both Arabian, with the finest fur of any breed on their backs. Mine's called Marshi. She's as understanding a horse as one could hope to ride. She'll need to be with me on her back. Our mutual understanding is subliminal. Most of the time I don't have to direct her. It's as if she reads my mind.
"I've packed some refreshments in a saddle bag, so I'm just about good to go. Go round the back. The door to the kitchen is unlocked. Freshen up, then put the door on the latch behind you."
She was so enthusiastic that I felt as if I had walked into the path of a whirlwind. I gulped, but tried not to show my trepidation at this unexpected offer of a ride. I had ridden a horse a few times, but never very far. Yet she seemed all prepared for a lengthy outing.
"Were you waiting for me?"
"Well, I hoped you'd come early. The girls will enjoy the exercise, and you'd be helping me out."
