The last day of Ann and Bill's visit came.
"Paul, would you mind if we took a look at the local preservation railway. You know we're into steam."
"We?" queried Ann.
"Well, you don't mind, do you Ann?"
Paul smiled. He had gathered at the railway museum when they had renewed their friendship that Bill had become quite a steam buff, indeed had been a train spotter in his early days. Even Paul could remember, as a lad, standing at the end of a platform collecting train numbers with a group of friends from school. Caps, flannel shorts and long socks held up with black bands of elastic tape - how things had changed! Train spotting had not been something which had lasted with him. He had just done it a few times.
"I'd love to. It would be a good day out. I'm sure there's a café there. I've not been but I've heard there is quite a collection. I'm not a steam buff myself. I was at that museum really for old time's sake, little realising how it would take me down memory lane! It is just so good to see you both again."
Not such a fine day, indeed overcast and with drizzle but on the plus side it was a 'steam day.' There were locomotives in steam with one hauling a set of coaches. A mixed bag of coaches from different eras mostly side corridor types but also a recently withdrawn Mk1 British Rail non-gangway (or so Bill said) carriage and, delightfully, a really old corridor less compartment coach not dissimilar to the one the three of them had travelled in so many years before. Better still, unlike the one at the museum, this one moved and, of course, they sat in that one.
"Now don't get any ideas, you two," said Ann as they got in. Quite what 'ideas' she was referring to was, probably, not at all clear to the people already seated in the compartment. Certainly the phrase could hardly mean what it sounded like. Not when the middle aged woman's companions were almost certainly her husband and very possibly her father!
A very pleasant trundle down the line. Not too fast but there were several stops on the way, both stations and halts according to Bill, and the train went through charmingly pretty countryside. By the end of the line the sun was starting to push through the clouds and the weather was definitely cheering up. Tea and scones were welcome in the tearoom and the little party had a jolly and altogether pleasant time.
Returning they found themselves in the same carriage - unsurprisingly - but, moreover, this time there was just the three of them in one of the compartments. The whistle blew, the green flag was waved and with whistle blowing the train began to move. The sound of the chug, chug, chug of the engine so evocative of earlier times before the advent of the diesels.
"Well," said Bill, "isn't this interesting!"
"No," said Ann.
"We could, you know."
"There's not time." she hissed.
"Yes, there is."
"The stations are too close together and I'm too old for that sort of game."
"They're not, are they Paul? Oh, and you most definitely aren't."
Paul did not wish to take sides. "They're not half an hour apart Bill, not a bit of it."
"Ten minutes at most," said Ann.
"Fifteen," countered Bill getting out the timetable.
He was, of course, right. One of the gaps was fifteen minutes anyway.
"I'm not getting undressed."
"Yes you are! Knickers please."
The look Ann gave Bill was what might be described as 'withering.' A long look.
Was she wavering, wondered Paul. It would be so good - and not just nostalgic, to do things once more in a railway compartment.
There was marital surrender. Ann stood.
"People might get on at the next station," Ann said as she stood in the swaying carriage and reached up under her dress.
Paul's eyes followed her movement just as his eyes had done when he was so much younger. Lovely to see yellow knickers brought down and out from the hanging blue cotton of her dress. She handed them not to Bill but Paul.
"You can look after them."
Such a reminder of the past when he had put Ann's knickers in his pocket - indeed, he remembered, he had taken them to bed with him. He watched as her hands went up and she held on to the luggage racks.
"Right, boys..."
Boys! Hardly. But certainly it felt a bit like being way back.
"... you wanted to do this. So, you get me worked up and I might, just might think about fishing in your trousers and seeing what I might find." And then there was her giggle. Just that same girlish giggle Ann had from years back. "Go on, here I am. Touch me."
Paul looked at Bill, and Bill winked. Paul followed Bill. It seemed appropriate to follow his lead as it had always done. It was his wife after all. A hand on a knee, then two hands on knees. Bill to Ann's right and Paul to her left. Hands stroking and then climbing. Two hands slowly ascending Ann's inner thighs. Such soft skin to stroke with fingers. There was no rush for the target, no quick sliding straight up to the junction of the thighs. There was no rush. They had seven minutes after all!
It was clear to Paul that Bill's and his finger stroking was causing Ann to spread her feet wider and wider. A gentle movement outwards of her shoes. Wonderful for Paul to know some six inches above his hand her sex was so open - probably already wet . Though he could not see Bill's hand because it was, like his, up inside the folds of the cotton dress, he could see it had not gone higher than his and Paul was not going to rush ahead of Bill.
He took his cue from Bill. Fingers removed and applied to the buttons at the top of her dress. Fingers on different buttons, fingers undoing and revealing Ann's brassiere.
"I suppose," said Ann and she reached behind herself, undid the clasp of her brassiere and cleverly, to Paul, removed it without even taking her dress off. "Hide that would you, Paul."
And Paul stuffed the warm brassiere into his other pocket.
