Cynthia was twenty-seven years old when she discovered that she was unable to do whatever she set her mind to with ease.
It might seem like a strange age to discover such a thing, as usually a person will find their confidence shaken long before then. Everyone has their strengths, and all that. But Cynthia Weber, apple of her parents eye and habitual success machine had always found that she naturally took to all things she tried.
From running track and playing girls lacrosse in high school, to academics and the arts in college, to her job working as a paralegal in a large firm settled in central London. Even moving abroad and ending up in England in the first place had been a breeze, despite growing up in small town America where anything further than the Dairy Queen in the next town seemed an entire world away.
Yes, Cynthia had always held the bull by the balls. But when she discovered the severe plumbing problems in the little flat she had purchased upon arriving in London, she met her match. Her father had always done the home improvements at home, her family being the picture of traditional gender roles. So when a pipe burst and her bathroom flooded, she knew that the first call she should have made was to a plumber.
Which she did, and which she firmly regretted when she got his estimate for the job. Her savings had already dwindled to next to nothing thanks to her costly relocation. Her new home was mortgaged, and her job paid well but not enough to cover her credit cards (which were maxed) and the plumbing. So the woman made a decision; she would fix it herself. How hard could it be?
The answer was: really fucking hard.
She didn't know a pipe wrench from a vise grip, and before long she was finding herself extremely grateful for the tiny second bathroom that still worked in her flat. But she didn't give up hope, and found herself turning to the trusty internet to help her out. It was there that she found her a forum specializing in home improvement, where people who had an actual idea of what the hell they were doing kindly offered their expertise and assistance to the poor little American girl who had become completely overwhelmed by her task.
It was on this forum that she met Gerald Parkman. At fifty-one years old, he had ample time over the years to figure out how to fix a busted pipe. Given his natural inclination towards fussiness, he had learned to take care of many basic tasks that would have required a tradesman, and he had been a lifesaver for Cynthia.
With his instruction and patient guidance through private messages, she had slowly managed to minimize the damage and fix a few things in her bathroom. He had even helped her to find someone else who charged much less to fix what was left over, while giving her pointers for other areas of her flat that needed work.
Throughout these messages they would often slip in personal conversation, getting to know one another. She knew his favorite food, and he knew that she went for a run in the evenings. They had spoken at length about favorite movies, music and even recommended books to one another. Given the difference in their ages, they seemed to have a great deal in common.
So when the bathroom was fixed and her flat fixed up, they still continued to speak. Only they took the next step and began to write at their respective email addresses, a touch more intimate to both of them. Not that anything that was said there had been inappropriate, more mildly flirtatious. At least as much as Gerald was willing to flirt, though he seemed to delight in her occasional implications and teasing.
After a particularly long day at the office, Cynthia happily entered her apartment, slipped off her shoes and jacket and headed to her computer. As it loaded the operating system, she wandered into the kitchen for a glass of wine, pulling her long, dark hair from its bun and shaking it out over her shoulders.
She was an attractive women, though not a beauty queen. Her hair was thick and a dark brown, almost black. Her skin was a light brown, though her ethnicity was always difficult for others to distinguish. Her eyes were so dark that they glittered like polished onyx, surrounded by thick lashes that she always wished were longer.
As for her body, she always considered it average. She was neither overweight nor thin, with a soft stomach and large breasts that were not nearly as firm as she would like. Her hips were narrow, but her bottom rounded just enough to be seen in the right kind of jeans.
Cynthia curled that body into a chair now, blowing a strand of hair from her face with her full lips. This had become a regular routine, getting online to surf various forums, read blogs or watch shows thanks to her not having a television with a working license. But her first port of call was always her email account, and when she saw Gerald's name heading a new message she grinned happily.
From: Gerald Parkman
Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2012 5:47 PM
To: Cynthia Weber
Hello Cynthia,
You know, it doesn't matter how often I type your email address in, it still makes me laugh. I am almost thinking of creating one of my own, just to have something more interesting than my former work address to write to you from.
How are you? You had mentioned the other day that you had a large staff meeting to attend this morning, and you seemed nervous. I hope everything went well? In any case, I doubt you have anything to fear, even if there have been rumors of redundancies. I can only imagine they would be lost without such a clever woman on the payroll.
Sincerely,
Gerald
Cynthia read over this email with a smile. He was always considerate, and he frequently brought up things she had mentioned in the past. Which was much better than the last several men she had dated, all of whom were much too preoccupied with her tits to care much about what was going on in her life.
Taking a quick sip of her wine and placing it down on the desk, she opened up a reply window and wrote him back. Hopefully, he would be online and they could have one of their enjoyable evening chats...
* * *
Gerald Parkman had, for the most part, lived a satisfying life.
He came from a working class family, and he had not been in a position to go to university. But after working for a time at his father's struggling building company, he had secured a low level position in his early twenties at an insurance agency. Over the decades he had managed to climb the ladder, sticking with the same company tenaciously until he had been poached by a rivaling business and placed into upper-middle management.
Marrying young, his wife Agatha had watched him become more successful. He had been able to give her the things she wanted; a nice house, regular holidays, the ability to stay home with their only son, Anthony. All of which she had enjoyed, along with her credit cards, and she showed her appreciation by being an attentive and loving wife.
Over time, their relationship had...not soured, that wasn't the right word. More ebbed away into something barely there. They were friendly and courteous to one another, and fights were non-existent. Sadly, that was due to the lack of passion and communication, rather than any improvement in their marriage. As evidenced by their total lack of a sex life.
When they had first gotten married, Agatha had been willing to have sex, if not especially enthusiastic about it. Not that Gerald had ever complained, and over time he began to feel as though his desires were disrespectful to the wholesome woman who became all the more long suffering in performing the most basic of sexual tasks.
By the time their son was born, they made love perhaps once every couple of months. As Anthony grew, he was lucky to get any physical affection beyond a peck on the cheek. Besides the occasional spontaneous hand job out of pity, sex had entirely dried up by the time the boy was in high school.
Gerald had long since been spending more and more time at the office at this point. He would never be unfaithful to his wife, no matter how tempted, and so he kept himself busy at work. His office became a refuge, and the one place where, after hours, he would look at pornography and guiltily hide the evidence of his wanking before heading home. Usually thinking about the young women in the office that he would be forced to look in the eye the next day.
However depressing it might all seem, he was not unhappy. Sure, he was sexually unfulfilled, but he felt that it was rather his own fault for being so fixated on his desires anyway. The rest of his life had been a triumph of hard work, and he had many benefits for it. His son was a good boy, who had been accepted into a top university, which Gerald could not be more proud about. As for his marriage, he truly did love his wife and he felt lucky to have such a good woman who cared so deeply for him.
Things began to take a turn for the worst the fall of his fiftieth year. He had been in the kitchen, preparing for another long day of work. As he half-heartedly listened to his wife trying to convince him to take a holiday in Spain that year, he started to notice a tingling in his left arm.
At first, he thought it had fallen asleep and began to rub his shoulder. But before long it coalesced into a sharp pain that spread to his chest. It had been Gerald's first heart attack, and a wake up call for a lifestyle change. The biggest of which was his company insisting that he take early retirement, cutting off his lifeline and ending a career that had given him a sense of purpose in life.
He liked to think that this had not triggered anything major, like a midlife crisis. It had merely forced upon him a pallor of boredom that he had been adamant he overcome. There was some belief from his wife that they would spend the time together, doing things they had always wanted. Unfortunately, it became apparent that the two had nothing in common, and within the first few months she had retreated to her own activities and left him to his devices. Who would have known that those 'things they had always wanted' were not the same for either of them?
Gerald had turned to projects to keep him occupied. When the small ones were not doing it for him anymore, he took on a much larger task he had always told himself he would do: a full house remodel, including an extension on the left side of the house. It was the perfect way to exhaust his energy and keep him from lingering too long on the growing discontent in the back of his mind.
While he could do a number of useful things around the house, he needed help. So he had become active on a number of websites, the most frequent being a forum that had sparked his home improvement project into a full hobby. Especially as it gave him a chance to offer his expertise to others, and so feel useful once again.
He was halfway through the remodel when he met Cynthia. The young woman was nothing more than another post with a problem, at first. But the more they spoke, the more he began to like her. And the more that tense feeling he refused to examine seemed to increase within him.
It was when they exchanged photos - a friendly gesture - that he found himself becoming a little obsessed. He had not given much thought up to that point of what she looked like. When she jokingly brought up the fact that he could be anyone, like a 14-year-old boy with a hardware magazine membership, he had laughed and searched out some old holiday photographs from two years before. Sending her one, he had been surprised when he had gotten a photo back.
The young woman in the photo was sitting with who he assumed to be several members of her family, including smiling parents and perhaps her brothers. She had dark eyes and hair, and smooth, tanned skin. The word that fluttered to mind as he studied the photograph was 'exotic'. He had been unable to keep himself from letting his eyes glance to the slight bit of cleavage peeking through the v-neck shirt, and her large, firm breasts.
She was beautiful in an unconventional way that he found he liked, and with her warm personality, wit and charm, he was immediately hooked. Though this was a secret attraction only, and he did everything in his power to control it. He was, after all, a married man. Besides, she was a fraction of his age, and he liked her too much to make her uncomfortable. He was terrified that if she knew the developing thoughts and fantasies of which she starred, she would stop speaking to him.
Attracted he might be, but all he really sought was a bit of friendly conversation.
He had spent the day painting the small upstairs office, and it was currently airing out. The windows all over the house were open to the quickly darkening autumn night. His wife had cleared out for the evening, participating in a function he hadn't really heard her explanation of. Some kind of raffle? Or maybe a sale of some kind?
In any case, he was alone once more with the stereo playing quietly in the background. He barely heard the music that in today's world was classified as 'oldies', but he could still remember hearing for the first time as a kid. He was surfing the net to avoid having to think on that too clearly.
Taking a sip of iced tea, he opened up a new browser tab and checked his email. A small smile flickered on his lips when he saw Cynthia's name waiting in his inbox, a reply to his earlier message. Experiencing the small wiggle of excitement that made him feel like a foolish schoolboy, he opened the email and read her response.
From: Cynthia Weber
Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2012 6:25 PM
To: Gerald Parkman
