The coolness of the morning air only accentuated the warmth of the sun. I was sitting on the steps outside my house when I identified the unsettled strange mood I was in. Well not so much identified as recognised that I was indeed in a strange mood. It was spring and with the lengthening days and rising temperatures the buds on the ash had turned from black to green. I was repotting some plants. On the to do list that I made the night before plant repotting was top.
It was something to do with my dream, of that I was sure. Remnants of the dream swirled in my head always just out of reach, like a butterfly every time I thought I had it it fluttered away out of reach. The thing was – it was a good dream but good in a way I couldn’t quite place. My late husband had featured of that I was sure but that wasn’t what made the dream good. Why would it? He’d ruined my life and left me a widow in a strange country. We’d came to London from Vietnam in the seventies. We’d been married less than a year when we arrived. I was just shy of eighteen he was a “crazy” 21 year old. Well he thought he was “crazy”, he was actually a silly boy continuously seeking attention and entirely unable to relax. No, it certainly wasn’t his presence that made the dream interesting. We’d been somewhere interesting and something dangerous was happening and I had a feeling that I was undressed.
As is the way with dreams the best ones are interrupted. At the end of my small garden runs a path, a proper paved path, and the far side of the path is bordered by a hedge. The buzz of a tool, I suppose a hedge cutter, woke me this morning. It didn’t last long, long enough to wake me but not much longer. As I sat in the sunshine musing over my dream, flip flops, grey tracky bottoms and a loose sleeveless shirt on, soil all over the place, the council van returned and deposited a man with a hedgecutter, a can of fuel and a brush. A two meter stretch of the hedge testimony to his earlier effort.
I think if someone who knew me were to describe me they would say I was quiet. Well I am I suppose. This is due to a number of reasons. All my family were very loud, as was my husband. I’m not competitive. For a long time my English was practically non-existent. And I am an oriental woman, demure. I say this because a powertool at the end of my garden, shattering the peace of my morning, would usually turn me apoplectic but this morning I watched with some degree of fascination as the aural onslaught unravelled. The man was black, similar age to me, late forties and the thought occurred that you could theoretically make about three of me from him. He’d walked the twenty metres length of the hedge, patting here, peering in there. There was something about his movement, an ease, unhurried, purposeful and with fluidity that had me hypnotised. It was about the time that he started the machine and began his first swathe of the hedge that it gelled in my head - I was aroused. There was a peculiar ache in my breast and a dull itch in my crotch, my teeth were unconsciously gritting. The air slowly filled with a heady mixture of scents, freshly cut hedge, petrol fumes and man. My nipples were hard and pointing through my linen shirt. As I shifted slightly on the step I could feel moisture between my legs.
For me arousal was a very rare thing. I’d slept with but one man. My late husband. He was keen enough but always in a hurry. He was a chef, always against the clock. He was also a gambler and a drinker and as it transpired later a philanderer. As a young woman I would masturbate and even into the early part of our marriage I would play with myself once he’d fallen into a drunken slumber following a fast and furious fuck. As the quality of the sex didn’t improve and the frequency decreased I just became less and less interested. Once he died in a fight ten years ago and all the confusion and sadness and loneliness took over sex was something that just evaporated for me.
I shifted my legs as a light breeze got up catching the wetness in my crotch, cooling me in a sublime way. My plant repotting was going slowly. I was going to speak with the man of that I was sure but first I must shower. The shower made things worse. Parts of the dream returned – a handsome Turkish man who had been in my English classes, he was holding me down, my husband was nearby but out of sight. We were naked, he was sucking my tits. One hand squeezed my almost non existent breasts, boyish aside from the large dark brown nipples, the other moved between my lips. Dressing in front of my full length mirror, I noticed that I was flushed, there was a colour to my cheeks that wasn’t there because of the shower.
I remembered the string of lemons I’d bought the day before and the jugs of lemonade I’d learnt to make the summer previous. It was at the third lemon that I noticed the noise had ceased. The two halves of the lemon rolled off the surface. I dashed to the front door. He was stood squinting at me in the now midday sun at the bottom of garden. He had his brush in his hand and was sweeping up the cuttings. “Hi,” I burst out. “Hi there, it’s a gorgeous day.” He smiled and before I could even think I said: “You look like you could do with a drink.” There was an uncomfortable silence, perhaps he’d sensed that I hadn’t really thought this through. “I was just making some lemonade, how does that sound,” I said and again there was something not quite me about the tone. Still no reply. “You finish up your sweeping and I’ll finish off the lemonade, give me a knock.” With that I disappeared back into my house. I stood in the kitchen wondering if what had just happened had really happened.
I felt foolish and desperate. I felt out of control and what with my Tai Chi and my careful dieting and studying being out of control was very much not me. I dipped a spoon in the lemonade to taste it, the bitterness made me screw my face but it was soon replaced by a welcome sweetness.
“Hello little lady?” He was at the door.
