This story is for those readers who have waited patiently for a new adventure. With a will of its own this very long story has taken over my mind and I have lived its highs and lows for several weeks, re-wording carefully until everything felt right. It has controlled me: I hope it pleases you all. But, in the end, it's just another little love storyβ¦Settle into your seats, grab your popcorn and dim the lightsβ¦
I suppose it all started way back when I was seeing Greg - or more to the point when I had just finished with him. 'Seeing' being a way of saying we were together, well, some of the time. I mean it was a relationship but not a satisfactory one, for me at least. He got what he wanted now and again and I suppose I went along with it. But it wasn't what I was really searching for and he didn't care at all what I wanted. He didn't even ask. Once he'd had his pleasures he'd lose interest in me for a bit. I suppose I'd had enough. I do a lot of supposing these days!
So I finished with him, as I said. Clean break: no regrets. And no harm done either. But I did mope around at home a lot like someone looking for something they'd lost or wanting something to do. I drove my mother mad, I suspect, but she was pretty supportive and jollied me along keeping me occupied when I wasn't at college over the Easter holiday that year.
I'd better start again. I'm Gwen and I'm twenty-two years old. I worked for a couple of years after I left school in a local hotel and then I decided to go to college and now I'm studying Catering and Hotel Management full time. Greg was on the same course [well, still is] β he's good looking, only twenty-one but an empty vessel, straw in the wind and content-free! I'm well rid of him.
'What do you want, then?' asked my mum, one Friday towards the end of the Easter holiday, whilst she was ironing in the kitchen.
'Someone like Peter, I suppose, but he'll never ask me out!'
'Who's Peter? And why won't he?'
'Another boy on the course. He's not as good looking as Greg, sort of facially I mean, but he's tall and, you know, strong looking. He has a silly threadbare little beard on his chin and a fringe over his eyes. Never speaks to me but he works hard and I think he's the best cook on the course by far. He just doesn't know it.'
'So you like him?'
'Yes, I do. He's just twenty, mum, younger than me.'
'Sometimes you have to make things happen, you know.' She smiled. 'While you're thinking that one out, can you take these two blouses and hang them in my wardrobe, please, Gwen?'
'Sure, pass them across,' I said.
'Oh, and whilst you are upstairs can you put these in my underwear drawer β top drawer at the side of my bed?'
'Okay,' I added as I took them from her. I went upstairs, dropped the panties on the bed whilst I hung the blouses in the wardrobe. Then I opened the drawer of the bedside cabinet. I saw three dark green, leather-bound photo albums in the bottom of the drawer: normally they would have been hidden by the underwear lying on top of them. I put the things in the drawer, closed it and went back downstairs.
'Do you mean ask him out or something?' I said as I entered the kitchen, picking up the conversation about Peter again.
'Yes, if you really want him.'
She smiled reassuringly. I went upstairs and changed into a pair of shorts and a brief top. I pulled an old blanket from a cupboard and went downstairs. Easter was late that year and the weather was unusually hot as well. I wanted to make the most of the good weather before college restarted.
'I'm going to sunbathe down near the cabin,' I told my mum.
'Right. I'll bring you a cold drink later,' she said. 'When I've finished this lot!' She pointed at a pile of shirts.
I wanted to improve my tan and so I spread the blanket and stretched myself out in the sun. The denim shorts had been cut off really short from an old pair of jeans. I pulled the top over my head and let my breasts absorb the warmth. I already had a reasonable tan and really I wanted to sunbathe nude but I was afraid of being caught by one of my parents. I compromised by going topless and dozed a little or maybe my mind just wandered over recent hurtful memories and, absorbed in those thoughts, I didn't hear or notice my mum coming down the garden until she was almost at my side. I didn't try to cover myself, it was too late.
'I've brought you an iced orange juice,' she said, as she settled down next to me. To my surprise she unbuttoned her blouse and removed it, unhooked her bra too and took it off. Her still firm breasts with erect nipples showed she still had a good figure to please my father. She grinned at me.
'I often used to sunbathe nude at home when I was your age,' she confided.
'I thought you'd disapprove and go mad if you caught me,' I said.
'Gwen, your dad and I used to go round the house naked a lot of the time when we were first married. We still do when both of you are away. Max is never here these days and your dad will understand, I promise.'
She made it all sound so normal, I felt a relief that I hadn't been wanting to do something she would consider wrong.
'But what if Max comes down the garden?' I said.
'Your brother is always out these days. When did he last come down the garden, Gwen?'
I smiled, admitting that was true. He was always out skateboarding or away snowboarding or something. Life was not a serious matter for Max, at least at seventeen, not yet it wasn't.
'Or dad, he might come.'
'Then he'd see you; he'd see what a beautiful woman his little girl has become. He'd be very proud of you,' she whispered. 'He might even join you, naked I mean, and sunbathe with you. Would you mind?'
'You wouldn't?' I asked.
'No, of course not.'
'Then I wouldn't mind either,' I said. We lay there a while, quietly.
Mum eventually added: 'And if you want to wander round in the nude at home that is fine by me. I'll go naked in the house too if you decide to. I'll forewarn your dad but we won't do anything ourselves until you actually want to do it, Gwen.'
Propping myself up on one elbow I looked earnestly into her eyes and said: 'And you absolutely promise that if I stroll into the kitchen one morning stark naked neither of you will go bananas or anything?'
She laughed. 'I promise,' she said, 'and I'll look forward to it!'
I flopped back down onto my back to take it all in. Things had changed unexpectedly in one afternoon. I had decided to say something, I still wasn't sure what exactly, to Peter; I could sunbathe in the nude as I wished and finally I hadn't forgotten those photo albums in mum's drawer. For some reason I hadn't wanted to ask her about them. I thought they might disappear if I did.
Things were looking up.
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