Elspeth saw Guy slow to a stop on the road beyond the front garden wall of her apartment block. She knew that the long wait to be with him was finally at an end.
They had met quite by chance when on holiday in Sardinia, she with her husband at the time, and Guy Somers on his own following his separation from a live-in partner. They both loved art and had met one morning when an art class was being convened and they discovered that they were the only English speakers in the group.
She had been dismayed by Guy's attentiveness and that he was considerate and helpful to a woman older than he was and afflicted by having to wear compression wristbands because of the toll arthritis was taking upon her. He had even said, at some point during their days together, when her husband spent his time playing golf, 'that she was 'brave and attractive'.
He had stopped short, he chose to admit a day or two later, from using the word 'beautiful', but by then she had felt drawn into an emotional maelstrom that the hours Ken spent away from her allowed to become more intense; times of having lunch, or coffee away from others in the group. It had even gone so far as swimming in the sea with him. She had been hesitant at first and felt ashamed to be seen in a flowing summer beach dress that covered her bikini-clad figure, modest and colorful, but not a distraction from a still trim figure, her appearance not diminished by her condition.
Guy had allowed for all of that and they had been reluctant to say goodbye at the end of their stay.
'Call it a farewell, for now,' he had told her, and she remembered nodding before the briefest of kisses had been shared.
She had fallen in love with him 'just a little', she would tell herself when she was alone; a sentiment that only seemed to grow deeper when they spoke on their iPhones and showed pictures of themselves, their painting, and even where they lived. Of his work, as a loss adjuster, he rarely spoke.
All of that went on while her marriage to Ken was being dissolved, that holiday failing to serve as any means of finding common ground or a route to a reconciliation that would save their childless marriage.
Now, she could live out her life differently and enjoy it as much as her condition allowed. She resolutely refused to be cowed by it, and Guy had helped her through whenever they could be together, their relationship not fully consummated and the reason for that only too clear.
She had a divorce settlement to consider and nothing should threaten, attractive as Guy was to her. She had been at the center of their times together and she had been taken by his devotion to her, the cause of that not fully explained but which she took to mean that he saw her as a woman, not one to be treated as someone with an ailment that needed his attention. He seemed to have taken all of that in and had remained loyal, something that was not always in Ken's nature. She had all but given up on trying to change him and divorce proceedings soon followed their return to England.
'Look after that first, your future well-being,' Guy had told her and sounding rather grand, but his embrace when they had been together had been comforting. 'I can wait. Your beauty never fades nor your lively company.'
True or not, and she sometimes wondered about it as she looked in the mirror and saw etched on her slender face the toll that pain and the pills for it took on her, that she loved him for saying it, unprompted.
She wanted to share in everything and to be his lover. A week had gone by since her divorce was made absolute, her settlement paid and she was finally free to be with him. They had both, seemingly, counted down the days until the hour of their reunion and the fashioning of a physical bond could be made real and not just spoken of.
The challenge now was to make it all work.
♥
She wished to live out her life differently and had spent the times of separation thinking through all that she sought of their relationship. There had not been the draining effects of having to toil with the conflict of loyalties and the deception of others that her thoughts and actions would have aroused had she been unfaithful. But, her marriage was leading to a disruptive end and, thus, she had reached the point where distraction and comfort were to be found with him, unlikely as it had all seemed until Guy had breached the defenses she had sought to put up on that holiday, only for him to confound her.
He understood her, but he did not give voice to what he had reasoned had been her decision to lowly concede to his discreet advances; to her seduction. The guy had been patient and had not pursued her in only too predictable ways. But now the time was for them, and them alone.
She felt a rush of longing, and excitement, on seeing him again, sauntering casually and unaware of the toll that not seeing him had taken on her after what seemed to have been so many weeks. His discreet calls and text messages had been a sign that he had not forgotten their closeness, then, nor the effect upon him of all that they had shared on that holiday in the sun.
Yes, she did continue to feel a deep sense of longing for him, wrong and destructive as it was then and unrequited as it had become ever since. But Guy had taken her out of her bounded world; one that her pain and the prescribed drugs failed to fully lessen.
If anything, her emotions had been acutely sharpened, her imagination seemingly running riot when she least expected it. She could say nothing of how deep it now ran within her, save for a few words when they flirted, or when she put her thoughts into an intimate text that she had begged him to read and then delete.
By these means, tension had developed between them that could only be resolved by being truly united with him, both in body and mind as she now desired, her body and her condition no longer concealed or not to be spoken of in any detail.
She waited and heard Guy push on the unlocked door to let him gain access to the apartment and knew that the time for waiting had finally come to an end. Every moment with him would now be savored. She was possessed by that emotion the moment that she rushed to be with him and to feel his arms enfold her as they kissed; clung to each other as if to fuse their bodies into one by clamping hands. Their caresses and gasping kisses gave way to considered touches to what they sought from each other's bodies.
