He sat down at one end of the park seat without looking at the person at the other end. In fact, they were only a few feet apart and he knew that whoever it was, they were probably looking at him. But he was taking Charlotte for a walk, quite a shaggy hybrid sort of spaniel.
It was only moments before the other person’s dog was growling. He looked at the woman, and noticed as he usually did if she was attractive. She had long legs now uncrossing as she turned to her dog to calm it. “He’s called George.” she said. About his age, they were both in their mid-fifties. She was slim, about his height, and hair immaculate and already grey.
He decided he’d reply to her, given there was a degree of appeal in what he saw, “Mine’s called, Charlotte. She’s docile. Don’t worry.”
To his surprise she replied in a friendly sort of way, “Hmm – George and Charlotte. A royal match.”
For the first time he looked her directly in her face, “What?”
She smiled with some amusement, “George, the Third, he was married to Queen Charlotte. Remember?”
He grunted, as if both ignorant and uninterested. “You’re a teacher, then?” he asked.
“That’s it,” she said with a similar amused smile. Her hand was still on her black-and-tan Alsatian. “He’s got a bit of spirit.”
“He’s German?” he said as if it mattered. “A German sheep-dog, right?”
“Right again,” she said still seeming amused. There was a church bell tolling in the background as it was Sunday. “Do you walk her usually?”
“Every Sunday. We (meaning his dog and himself) watch the old folk going to the church.”
“Might see you again, some time.” And she stood up walking off with her dog that was still interested in the spaniel.
He watched her behind, and her striding with long steps which he decided was elegant. Then he called out, “You left your glasses case here.” She looked around and came back for it. Her usual smile crossed her face again as she thanked him. He stood up deciding to accompany her for a little. They walked side by side.
She was looking down at the path as she stepped out, and with an expression suggesting she was pleased to have interested him. “What do you do, then?” she said eventually to break the silence in case it became less friendly.
“Oh, I manage the garage. On the by-pass. It’s a petrol station, really.”
She looked at him, “I know the one. Yes,” she said, “perhaps I recognise you. What’s your name if I may ask?”
“Reg.” But he did not ask hers. He was feeling suddenly nervous. Though he often noticed women in the street and the park, and sometimes would follow behind them for a few yards, he’d never got into conversation with one before. In fact, he was more at ease with dogs.
She was smiling again at his loss of composure which was sufficient to have communicated itself to her. “I’m Grace.” She was quite entertained by this awkward man by her side. His awkwardness made her feel she could control him. She felt comfortable, even if he was awkward. Perhaps because he was! The dogs were pulling at their leads as if to get at each other. “Let’s meet again,” she said as if dismissing him for today.
“OK,” he nodded, but kept on walking by her side which amused her. Why she wondered did she not feel threatened. In fact, as they continued and left the park she asked if he’d like to have a cup of coffee, to which he also nodded. His nervousness continued. The dogs were happily interested in each other exploring with their noses. She took him to her small house just outside the park.
When they entered, he stood nervous and still, and as if waiting to be told to sit – which she did in a teacher-like way. And he obediently sat where she indicated. That little-boy quality of his still amused her. But now she was feeling a bit nervous too. She never entertained a man in her house – apart from her brother who was always popping in.
She left the room to go to her small kitchen to make coffee in her best jug – two of her best cups and saucers as well. When she sat down on the other side of the room with the low table in between with the refreshments on it, they were both silent. It was as if both were out of their depth and yet they felt they should be of an age when ordinary friendliness should have been quite automatic. He leaned forward as if he had something important to say to her, “You lived here long?”
She remained amused at his fumbling for something to break the silence. It relaxed her if she could see his nervousness, because then she could see about relaxing him. She remained sitting up straight and told him it had been her parent’s house, but they were both gone and had left her the house. She had a brother and he had been left a little cottage a few miles away on the coast. She sometimes stayed there for a day or a night. And then amazingly, she found herself saying that he might like to take his dog to stay there briefly.
He didn’t jump at the offer. And she began to feel her nervousness again. The dogs were now lying calmly on the rug in front of the fireplace. He said, rather clumsily, “Do you think we could become friends?”
Her ready smile bloomed again, “Looks like we’re going in that direction.” And she pointed at the dogs, as if it depended on them.
He nodded, and she wondered if he ever smiled.
“They look as if they like each other. You know, I never got him doctored. I couldn’t.” He looked blank. “It seemed so unkind. So, he gets kind of… fresh. You know.” But she didn’t know why she was telling him; perhaps it was to warn him to protect his Charlotte.
He looked intensely at her, “Sorry, love. I forgot your name.”
“Grace,” she said, But this time she did not smile. It seemed to be increasingly heavy going.
“Ah. Grace. That’s a nice name. Mine’s, Reg.”
“I know. Are you married, Reg?” She felt now she had no idea how to carry on a conversation with this unnerved man. It didn’t seem to matter what she would say.
He shook his head, “No, I’m not.” But he did not elaborate. And he continued to look rather lost with her.
“No, nor am I,” she said, briskly. “Never wanted to,” and she shook her hair back with a flick of her head. “But sometimes, I wonder what it would have been like.” She looked down at her dog and stroked its head. The dog moved slightly in response.
He looked at her, and said in his incongruous way, “Well, we could try.”
She looked up sharply at him and burst out laughing. “What?” she said impulsively, so surprised she didn’t think what she was saying, “Is this a proposal.”
He then blushed, slowly, all over his rugged face. And she cut her laughter short. “Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh.” No-one ever proposed before. Not to me.” She was flustered. “I suppose we could try.” She didn’t know whether to take it in a humorous way as if not serious, or if she should respond to his seriousness.
“OK.” It was almost as if she was just buying petrol at his garage.
“Let’s be serious for a moment, Reg. Are you really thinking about this? We don’t know each other, do we. Perhaps we should get to know each other, We only met half-an-hour go.” Her mind was trying to take in what was happening. Just as she was finding it boring, he had now turned her upside down. “We’d better get to know each other properly, I think. Let’s spend the rest of the day together, tell each other everything about ourselves.”
“I’ve got to go to work this afternoon.”
“Oh, OK. Come back afterwards and I’ll cook us a nice meal. What time will you finish.”
“Eleven o’clock.”
“Oh, that’s late, isn’t it?”
“It is the shift I’m on.”
“Yes, OK. Well, we could have a bedtime glass of wine, if you like.”
“Yeah,” and he stood up as if being dismissed. “I’ll come back later, if you like.”
“Yes, come back later.” And he put the lead back on the dog and left without saying goodbye. Her first thought was to question herself viciously about why she had agreed to see him at 11 o’clock in the evening. She couldn’t ring him with excuses to cancel as they had not swapped phone numbers. She could just not answer the door; be in bed; be asleep. She sat down again, poured some more coffee and told herself to think, think hard, what she was doing. Perhaps she could welcome him with a bottle of wine. She could go and get one from the little shop down the road. ‘Fuck,” she allowed herself to say, to herself, ‘it is the last thing I want to have myself turned upside down and inside out like this.’ She decided to go and get a bottle of wine, just in case and come back and decide what she really wanted to do. Was there something nice enough about him to spend a little time with him? But why did she agree to 11 at night. She had to get up for work tomorrow. She had never known how to handle relations with blokes. It was only boys in her class at school who she had any connections with at all. Men, she told herself, are grubby. She went to have a shower.
He meantime was wandering back with Charlotte, the spaniel. He walked slowly feeling dizzy to the other side of the park. Of course, he did not have to go back to the woman after his shift. Best to forget all that silliness. What does she want to marry him for. What could she want him for? For once his curiosity perked up. What were women really like when you got close to them? He had never had the opportunity. Suddenly his life had changed direction, completely. Like going into reverse gear. Or perhaps he suggested to himself it was more the other way. After going backwards away from everything all his life till he was fifty he could not change into forward gear. He had no idea what on earth that would mean, what he would have to do. What would she want? What does a woman want? They don’t want men with no experience. He shouldn’t go back. That’s it.
She waited at 11 pm listening hard for the doorbell as if it might be difficult to hear, still not knowing if she would answer it.
But it didn’t ring.
Nevertheless, the next Sunday he was out bright and early with Charlotte, and sitting on the park bench as the week before. She too was curious to see if he was walking his dog but was careful not to walk past their bench seat. After all she’d had a proposal of marriage! As she walked around at a distance behind and out of sight, she could see him sitting there. ‘Now what!’ she thought. And no answer came to her, none at all. So she just stood. It was George who gave the game away, because, off the lead in the park, he suddenly realised his new friend Charlotte was over there by the seat. He went racing over before she could move or stop him. When he came near, Charlotte noticed him and jumped-up straining, still on her lead. But Reg let her off not realising what was happening and just wanting to give her a bit of freedom on her walk. The dogs sniffed at each other for a moment and suddenly George was up on her and they were copulating – in public, George and Charlotte. Immediately Reg heard the disturbance and started to shoo them apart. But the dogs were not too keen to part. Grace was now running to control her dog and came up to them lashing George with the leash to distract him from Charlotte. In fact, George was not easily distracted. But as the situation came under control, Reg found he was facing Grace, and she was practically in physical contact with him. They stared at each other. The situation seemed extremely personal.
Perhaps it was as close to intimacy with a woman that Reg had ever been. He backed away, and then sat down on the seat. He had thought about her a lot during that week, a lot. She was standing looking down on him sitting there, not sure whether to flounce away with her anger, or to stay and have it out with him. After a moment of doubt she sat down on the seat with as much distance from him as possible. “You stood me up last Sunday.” She was not exactly haughty but did convey her sense of being completely in the right.
He stared at her, not knowing what to say. But blurted out painfully, “You don’t want a man like me.”
She wondered what he meant, was he referred to something awful he’d done in the past or whatever. But found herself saying, “Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?” and realised that she could be considering him as a man she wanted. “I mean, I hardly know you.”
He turned to her and, in a brave sort of a way, confessed, “I’ve never been with a woman before.”
She was struck very forcefully by the shame in him about his lack of masculine experience. But what could she say to that? She decided, also bravely, to follow suit, “Well, all I’ve done was play around with a boy in my class. When I was about twelve. Once, my father saw us. He was so cross, he whipped me. He had never done anything to me like that. He was so cross. I cried for a while, all night I think. I wouldn’t look at him for ages afterwards. One day he held me in his arms again and told me never to do that again. And I cried again and told him I was sorry. And I’ve never done anything like that again.”
“What did you play around at?”
“Oh, just looking, and touching… you know… our parts.” Reg looked at her, wondering what he could say. “Now you think I am disgusting. You look just like he looked at me. My father. He was disgusted with me.”
He continued looking at her distress, “No, Grace. No, no I’m not.”
“I was disgusted with myself. I am. I think I am still. I went to a group for women who had been abused. But they told me I had not been abused. I think they were right and I was just being dirty with the boy.” She looked very sad and even hopeless; and she added irrelevantly perhaps, “He was called John.”
“I never played with anyone. I don’t know anything about a woman,” he said as if he wasn’t actually talking to one of that category.
Her mood seemed to lighten immediately, “Coo, we are much the same, I reckon, Reg.”
He looked curiously at her and then his face darkened with tension and anxiety. “Are you saying we should play around together?”
“Oh,” she laughed loudly, “Oh, of course not.” And she laughed almost hysterically. Two people walking by looked and wondered if she was being molested by the man on the seat next to her. “Of course not. Nobody should suggest that, unless they wanted to. Unless they both wanted to.” She put her hand out to touch his arm, trying to relax his alarm.
And he did calm a bit. But the dogs were now pulling at the leads as if they’d been stirred by the tension between their owners. He stood. “You’re a bit of a funny woman, aren’t you Grace.” And then he added hurriedly, “But I like talking to you.”
Grace, too, had calmed when she had seen how tense he had become. But he now walked away with Charlotte, who kept pulling back and turning to look at George.
The next time they met was when Grace decided to fill her car at the petrol station on the by-pass. She didn’t usually go there. But she just thought she might, for a change. There was a bit of a queue, so she got out of the car to wipe some bird dirt from her windscreen. The woman driver in front of her was filling her car, and said, out of the blue, “I often come her, don’t you? Because the bloke who runs it is a bit gorgeous, isn’t he.” The woman had a lot of make-up and had tight jeans. “But he’s a bit nervous, isn’t he. He gets all nervous when I look at him.” She laughed in a slightly scoffing way, but also an admiring way.
When Grace had filled and went in to the cash desk to pay, she was not at all surprised to see it was Reg at the till. He did not look up, and she realised he must have spotted her through the window. When they had finished the transaction she said thankyou, and as there was no-one waiting behind her at that moment, she added, “Let’s go and see a film together.” He did not look up but shook his head slowly as if he was caught off balance and didn’t know what to say to her invitation. But she took his shake of the head as a ‘no’. So she added with a degree of silly abandon, “Well, come round and we can watch some tellie together.” And she chuckled hesitantly.
There was a moment or two of hesitation and then to her surprise he said, “OK”. She immediately thought of the woman outside saying she thought he was a bit gorgeous. Indeed, he could be gorgeous, and had a good physique under his work clothes. She knew what she liked in men – would like in a man.
She left and he watched her through the window. He always said it was the best view. As they walked away, they could not see him looking.
He went around to her house after he’d finished at 6.30. Not on until 11 pm this day. It was a weekday. She heard the doorbell go and was astonished and flustered to see him on the doorstep. She let him in. They hardly spoke, but standing in the hallway, she said, “I’d better cook. I need to go around to the shop to get something. Come with me. You can hold the basket. Is there anything you don’t like to eat?”
When they got back, she sat him in the same chair, and he watched the television news without much interest while she spent the time actively in the kitchen. She spread the table, served the food and they ate. There was not much to say apart from ‘pass the salt’ etc. Neither of them knew what to expect. As they finished, he said, “I should have brought Charlotte, she would have liked to see George again.”
“They’d have got up to no good.” But she was wondering actively what they would get up to themselves. And so was he; the meal was good, but…. now what? She gathered up the plates and took them into the kitchen. And then returned to sit down across the table again. She looked as though she was expecting something from him. She lay her arm on the table in a relaxed sort of way as if inviting him to touch it. So he did; he put his hand on her wrist. It felt warm and also exciting to touch this object of desire. She smiled at him and he gazed as if spellbound at her welcoming face. He looked so serious. “Please smile at me,” she asked. And so he did. “You look so gorgeous when you smile,” she said, repeating what the tarty women had said to her at the petrol pump earlier. She seemed to be egging him on to do something, initiate something with her. But he didn’t know what he should be doing. And then with inspiration he picked up the wrist he was touching and kissed the back of her hand. “That was lovely,” she said. So he held it to his lips again. She said rather matter-of-factly, “I think we could be romantic together.” And now she was tense, having broached the subject that neither of them really understood.
He could feel the tension in her hand as he held it against his face, and lips. He put it down on the table and cupped it in both of his hands. “Do you really want to try with me?” he said earnestly.
“We’ll have to teach each other what to do won’t we?” She was trying to be practical to manage the rising tension and excitement between them.
He nodded, “Yes. Do you mind?”
She laughed and relaxed a bit at his anxious concern. “Mind? No more than you.” And she took her hand away from his so she could put it to his face and feel the beginnings of stubble. She had not felt that before. She stood and pulled on his arm to follow. When they were together in the bedroom he looked around as if it were some strange forest in the middle of Africa. A woman’s bedroom looked so tidy. He looked at the single bed; it seemed very small. He was feeling terrified again at what he’d have to do to her. She said coyly, “Perhaps we should undress first.” He began to take his clothes off, while she watched. He was naked when she said. “It’s easier for a woman isn’t it. She can see what she’s got to hold,” and she was looking at his penis which was feeling like a growing sausage, “and what she’s got to do with it. But a man can’t see anything much of what a women’s got.” Then she thought of her previous conversation of her forbidden escapade as a schoolgirl. “Would you like to see my parts, so you know what they look like. And what to do with them? I’ve never shown them to a man. I mean a grown man. Like this.” She was feeling devilish and wondering what her father would be thinking now. She felt she was defying everything good. “Shall, I undress now?” she asked.
He nodded and mumbled, “Yes.”
“Or touch your penis?” he shook his head. But she did touch it and held it. It lay in her hand like the crown jewels. He was so familiar with his own erection, but only when it lay in his own hand. To feel her gentle grip around it now chased away every single thread of tension. She let it go and began to undress, watching him watch her as her body slowly revealed itself. She wondered if he approved of it. It became important that he liked it. “Tell me,” she asked, or demanded. He looked puzzled. “Tell me it is nice. Tell me you want to see my parts, to find them, and find out what they are.”
He was at a loss, “You are a very beautiful woman,” he said, or even recited from the last love-scene he had watched on television.
“You are nice to me,” she smiled. And her panties came down to her ankles. He was looking at her nakedness and stepped forward to give her a powerful hug. She yielded to him, and their bodies swayed gently together for several minutes. He could feel the touch of her skin on his penis which increasingly felt the centre of his body, of the universe.
“Let’s get on the bed. Then you can find out all the parts that a woman has got. Please be gentle with me.” She got on the narrow bed. And spread her thighs to give him space so that he could see what she had got between her legs.
He looked carefully at her groin. “You are beautiful,” he said with more sincerity.
“So are you,” and she was looking at his penis in its semi-swollen state. “Can I feel your balls?”
“Yes,” he said. She held them. She noticed that as she touched them and held and fondled them, his breathing changed. It was deeper. And his eyes changed as if he was not seeing anything.
“Look at my parts, Reg.” And while she held on lovingly to his balls, he looked.
“Can I touch you there?”
“Yes, dear Reg. I want to feel you touching me. It’ll make me feel just like you feel now as I hold you.” So he put his fingers on the wrinkled skin between her thighs. “You can find a slit if you part those folds. Your finger will slip in.” So he did what she invited. And with some fumbling found the slit that was the entrance to her. And now her breathing changed, just like his. “Now,” she said, “there’s a hole you can find. And just in front of the hole I want you to rub it there, Very, very gently. That’s the clit. Ah, you’ve found it.” She lay back to enjoy the rising energy that spread through the skin all round her thighs and hips into every inch of her body it seemed. Her breathing was getting stronger. “Now, Reg, you must do something else. I want to find out what it’s like. You feel that spot you’ve touched with your finger, I want you to lick it. Soothe it with your tongue.
He moved back and withdrew her hand. Hers slipped away from his balls. “Lick it?” he asked.
“I want to see what it’s likc.” She looked up into his face. “Shall we try it? We don’t have to.”
“OK.” He put his head down between her legs and tried to find his way towards her slit with his face and lips to lick her. He didn’t mind so much from a hygiene point of view, but he could feel his erection declining. With some care and difficulty he found the right spot and to his amazement her breathing changed abruptly to a gasping which quickened and quickened and in no time she was crying out as if in a kind of delicious pain. He knew what it was, but had never realised a women reached an orgasm as he did. Moreover, as she came, his erection seemed to respond as well. She told him when he had licked enough. And as if in a daze she asked him to get into her hole. It did entail a lot of nervous fumbling again, but he did it, to his surprise. And the automatic body movements took him over till he too climaxed, dizzyingly, inside her.
They both relaxed together, having discovered what life is all about, it seemed. He lay back nearly off one side of the little bed and she buried her face in his neck, kissing the stubble. They lay for five minutes without moving, then minutes more. No movement as if they were one, and any movement would snap them apart. There were no real thoughts in his mind apart from going over the experience again and again. He had accomplished what a man can accomplish with a woman who was, as he now knew, as beautiful as any he had every watched and followed.
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