FUN UNDER A WARM SUN
It was a blisteringly hot day for early summer in Brittany. Still, she had planned their holiday well and chosen a small resort close to secluded bays, the rocky outcrops covered in sea pines where, if you wanted to laze in the partial shade that they cast, you could still enjoy the view of the sea, or take a cooling dip if you chose to do that.
"I'm glad you decided to bring the parasol," Laurent smiled as he gazed at his wife. She was unfastening her skimpy summer skirt, the orange fabric stark against her lightly tanned legs. A white blouse would soon follow and be stuffed into a large beach bag. "You can sunbathe topless and not disturb anybody..."
"Except you," Madeleine smiled, reaching out to offer a fingertip caress to his shoulder as Laurent pushed the parasol's pole as deep as he could into the sand, and she then spread out their beach towels. "We're lucky, there aren't too many people about."
"At least not here and not yet. It's too quiet, and people want to have the shops and bars close by and not have to walk too far. You saw the crowds..."
"Yes, I did," she answered, smiling at him. "You're getting fussy now..."
"Now that I'm retired and getting older by the day?" He shrugged in acceptance of what they had both said. "So be it then, chêrie."
"Oh no, here comes the crowd," Madeleine sighed.
She sat on a towel, partially shaded by the parasol and with the sun not quite overhead. Laurent gazed at his young wife and still lovely with it. Her auburn hair had been tied back and gripped in a colourful elasticated band, her bikini modest compared to what many women were seen to be wearing, but she filled it nicely. His woman had more than enough for him.
On their way to their chosen beach, they had passed through the throng. They had seen obsessive sunbathers already lounging in sun chairs, or spreadeagled on towels, their skins oiled up, and the mass they were a part of a reminder of some seal colony, the noise of kids, their whoops of delight something to get away from if they could.
A hectic year was finally at an end, and they had sold up their business and had decided to retire earlier than planned. They had always wanted a family, but the stresses of work had gotten in the way and not helped her fertility never high, and the older she got, the less chance of what they hoped for happening.
Laurent gazed around them. "It looks like we've found just the spot. There's no one about, or none to make us feel hemmed in."
Madeleine lay back on her towel and saw Laurent gaze at her, a smile teasing the corners of his mouth.
"What are you looking at?" she smiled provocatively, her husband at fifty looking strong and tanned, his chest hair going blonde, his pecs defined as were his stomach muscles. He looked after himself and wasn't so vain that he bothered to do something about his greying hair, which was swept up. She loved it that he lived for her and the dream that she clung to.
It had brought them closer, their age difference not bothering them in the slightest. Laurent had become her friend, lover, and finally a devoted husband. Yes, money was needed to live by, but it was not the main driver for the life they lived together.
She sat up suddenly. "Let's go for a swim before it gets too crowded!"
Laurent looked approvingly at his wife, her bikini flattering a fulsome figure and her breasts straining the cups that held them, the halter neck strap refastened.
Holding hands and whooping like kids, they ran into the water, Madeleine spluttering for breath as she surfaced and looking frantically around for him. He was never far away from her, and Laurent now swept her up into his arms, and she rose to wrap her legs around his waist. She exulted on being held so close, his lips pressed to her skin.
"I'd make love to you here and now, if I could," Laurent said, his lips now close to her mouth before they kissed. Madeleine embraced him tightly as his fingers brushed over her bikini briefs and pressed into her sex. She whispered in his ear, then kissed his earlobe. "Okay, I'll behave..."
Kids frolicked and splashed around them. A dog swam past to retrieve a ball that had been thrown for it.
"I wonder if we will ever have to look at ours playing like that," she asked him, her eyes fluttering as emotion overcame her. "I do go on about it, don't I?"
"It's okay. I was thinking the same." They swam and played porpoises, never far out of reach of each other. "We've got to keep hoping and believe in what the doctors say...we must try not to worry and think about it and let nature, and your love of sex take its course."
Madeleine met his teasing smile and flicked water at him. "I never hear you complaining!"
As she swam away from him, she realised just how right her man had been in saying what he had said. He was something of a romantic, and sex had to be spontaneous; an expression of how you felt about each other and wanted to share. Trying to conceive, the timing of it to match a biological clock, took the romance and fun out of what they so eagerly sought from each other.
"I want it all, or both ways," she whispered and giving voice to her thoughts.
"What do you want?" Laurent asked as they walked up the beach, and to their pitch, arm in arm. "Sorry, I didn't hear what you said."
"You've heard it from me before." She had been startled, woken from a moment's daydreaming as the noise of children's voices again reached her. "Let's go for a walk in those woods, up on that hill, and find a place where we can be alone. We dry off first..."
