Perspective

Byron's Perspective

Alec was about seven years younger than me and I'd got to know him when his family moved into 36 Fox Lane so we were neighbours. At the time I first saw him I was fourteen and he was seven. I think because he had no siblings he viewed me as a sort of substitute older brother. It was a win-win situation because I didn't have a younger brother, or any brother or sister for that matter, so I took him under my wing.

You know the sort of thing; showing him how to make a kite and fly it; taking him down to the creek and teaching him how to catch yabbies; (For those unfamiliar with this term, a yabby is a small fresh water crayfish); taking him out on walks in the nearby bush and spotting kangaroos, emus and other wild creatures. All the sort of things an older brother might do for a young brother.

I suppose if he'd been my real brother, and if I saw him as a rival for my parents' attention, it might have been different. But his mother was very grateful for the attention I paid Alec.

What his father thought I don't know because he was what my mother called, "A miserable sod," and he seemed to pay little attention to Alec and when he did it was only to shout at him or say something nasty, so perhaps I was a bit of a substitute father as well.

Anyway he was a nice kid, quite bright but a bit shy and I had real affection for him. His mother, Jenny, was a pleasant woman and she often said she valued what I did, and that she knew she could trust me with Alec.

* * * * * * * *

I was about sixteen when a crisis erupted in Alec's family. The first I heard of it was when I overheard my mother tell dad, "That miserable sod has left Jenny." I got some detail next day when I saw Alec. He was only nine and didn't understand the full implication of what had happened. He simply said, "Dad's left mum and gone to live with a woman."

I heard my parents talking about it and mum saying, "A good thing too, she won't have to put up with that sarcastic bully any more, and perhaps she can have a bit of life now."

My father said, "She's attractive enough to get herself another man."

"Then you keep your eyes off her Dennis, and perhaps she won't want another man." mother said.

"All I'm saying Laura," Dad replied, "is that she's young enough and pretty enough to start again if she wants to -- no compulsion."

I think that was the first time I thought about Jenny's age. Considering Alec's age I thought she could be as young as twenty seven and her looks seemed to confirm this, but of course it was only a guess.

At that time I was well into the stage when guys start to size women up for their looks but I'd never really taken much notice of Jenny's in that respect. After my father's comment about her being attractive I took an interest.

I suppose the word to describe her would be curvy or put more salaciously, voluptuous; you know the sort of thing, she went in and out in the right places for a woman.

I think her face can best be described as oval, with small but nice regular features and she had large hazel eyes which were long lidded and they seemed to have a sad look. She had auburn hair that always looked clean and shiny and was always cut neatly to just where her head joined her neck.

She spoke very quietly in a low alto voice that made you wish she'd go on talking, just saying anything so you could go on hearing her. This was a great contrast to mum, who is inclined to be a bit raucous especially when she gets excited.

Mum was also very different in looks to Jenny, and dad use to call her "My wild gypsy." He was older than mum by ten years and I know he really appreciated her because I could often hear him appreciating her in bed at night. Mum used to appreciate him back and I knew this because she was always a bit noisy about it.

I'd had my incestuous phase over mum. For a while I got jealous because dad had her to himself. At the time I decided that there ought to be a law that said fathers should share mothers with their sons -- sexually I mean -- but I got over that after I had my first sexual intercourse with big busty Rosemary Anders.

But back to Jenny; I concluded that as dad had said, she was an attractive woman; not fantastically beautiful but if she wanted to she could get herself another man. Having come to that conclusion I thought no more about it, although it did puzzle me a bit why her husband had committed adultery - why he felt the need since he had such an agreeable wife, but then, some of us are never satisfied, are we?

Jenny, as far as I could tell, didn't take on another man, unless you counted me as another man.

By that I mean that after "miserable sod" left I did a few of the jobs around her house that a husband might normally be expected to do like changing tap washers and clearing a stopped sink. At first she wanted to pay me for these little jobs, but I refused, and so she got around to giving me lunch occasionally, I suppose as a sort of payment.

Now you might be thinking that at this stage I'd got to the point of wanting to screw her, but you'd be wrong.

Of course I knew about the older woman-younger guy thing; in fact in my class at high school we had this guy, Phally Andrews, who boasted that he'd screwed dozens of older women. His name wasn't really Phally and his nickname was short for Phallus. He was reputed to have the biggest dick in the school. Smarty Oberon had looked up the word "Dick" in a Thesaurus and found one of its synonyms was "Phallus."

I didn't really believe Phally and his talk about older women until I saw him come and go regularly at Mrs. Fraser's house a few times. Her husband was an interstate rep for his company and was often away from home, and I noticed Phally never called when he was at home. Mind you, I still think Phally grossly exaggerated his conquests.

As I say, I didn't think about Jenny sexually, that is, until one day when I saw her hanging the washing out on the clothesline. I must have seen her do it many times before, but for some reason that particular day I took notice.

She was wearing shorts and they fitted rather closely, and the first thing that caught my attention was what a nice bum she had, it's buttocks high and firm. Then I noticed her stomach. Now I know a lot of you guys like woman to have flat stomachs and I think I did up until that day I noticed Jenny's stomach for the first time. Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't big and fat, but it just swelled out a little, and I thought it looked really sexy.

That I think was the first time I felt a bit horny over Jenny.

* * * * * * * *

I passed on from high school to tertiary studies and Alec was starting to move away from me a bit. He was involved with the Scouts and that together with his school work took more of his time. I'm not saying we had nothing to do with each other, but I suppose he was in the very early stages of moving away from adult supervision to a bit of independence, and I think in his eyes I qualified as adult at the time.

As you can imagine, previously I'd spent quite a bit of time in Alec's place, in fact I'd built a small gate in the fence that divided our back gardens. I was still doing the occasional odd job for Jenny so I was still around their place at times.

Now I don't know what your experience has been, but I think that sometimes a quite small incident can make a dramatic change in our lives. One such incident certainly brought about a change in my life.

One day Alec came to our place. He'd got a computer and it'd had a fit of paralysis; everything was jammed up and he'd tried turning it off and on and still it was jammed. He'd been in the middle of a school project and was a bit panicky.

I knew a bit about computers so I went back to his place to see if I could fix the infernal machine.

I got it going for him and rescued his project, and as I was in the middle of a study project myself I was in a hurry to get back to my place.

Now I don't know whether Jenny thought she was alone in the house, or that Alec was the only one there and unlikely to come out of his room, but as I came out of Alec's room Jenny came out of the bathroom naked.

When she saw me she didn't yell or scream or anything like that. She just stood there taken aback for a few seconds, there was an intake of breath, and covering herself up with the towel she was carrying she hurried off to her bedroom.

I was as stunned as her, but in those few seconds I'd got a sort of mental image of her breasts locked into my brain.

I'd seen female breasts before, but for some reason Jenny's made an impact on me. I kept getting that mental image of them and for me they were the most seductive breasts I'd ever seen.

I wanted to see them again -- not the image, the real thing I mean, and that was when I started to make any excuse I could to be in her place, and particularly in her presence.

Alec wasn't the excuse he might once have been, and so I used to do jobs that Jenny hadn't asked me to do, like cleaning out the gutters, mowing the lawn and weeding the flower beds; anything that would put me as close as possible to her.

These activities led to my being with her having a cup of tea or some lunch, usually in the kitchen.

I started to have crazy thoughts about her; how I'd do anything for her just to be with her; that she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen and I wanted to make love with her and be with her all the time.

I suppose that's what they call being in love and I certainly thought I was in love with her. I dreamed about her at night, and she kept popping into my mind during the day when I should have been concentrating on other things.

I wanted to tell her how I felt about her but could never muster the courage, and I suppose foolishly, every time I copulated with a girl I felt as if I'd betrayed Jenny.

It might have gone on for ever, or might eventually have faded out, but one day, just after I'd finished planeing off the bottom of her front door that was jamming, and had screwed it back in place, things were brought to a head.

I was sitting in the kitchen drinking a cup of tea, while Jenny was doing something at the sink, when she turned to me and said...

Jenny's Perspective.

I first me Byron's family when Hal, Alec and I moved into 36 Fox Lane. Dennis and Laura were very welcoming and I noticed that despite their age disparity Alec and Byron seemed to get on very well, it was as if they were older and younger brothers.

I'd often thought it was a pity that Hal didn't want us to have any more children because I thought it was good if there were siblings. I suppose in a way it was a blessing I didn't have any more children at the time, the way things turned out.

I really liked Byron. He wasn't like a lot of boys of his age, noisy and brash and always showing off or going into a sulk. He was good for Alec because he showed him a lot of boy things and I really trusted Byron with Alec.

Sometimes I'd make them some sandwiches and they'd take a bottle of water and go tramping through the hills most of the day, and Alec would come home excited about the things he and Byron had seen.

I was grateful that Byron spent so much time with Alec, because I had my work to do. I had a job writing medical reports for doctors and I was able to work from home on the computer, and at holidays times when Alec was at home all day it could be a bit difficult, but Byron as it were, took Alec off my hands a lot of the time.

He was so patent with Alec. There was a time when Alec was having a hard time with arithmetic and Hal, who was a quantity surveyor and good at that sort of thing, couldn't be bothered to help Alec. He just told him, "Use your bloody brains," and that to a little boy -- I think Alec was eight at the time. But that was Hal's way, sarcasm and nasty remarks, not only with Alec, but with me as well.

It was Byron who spent hours coaching Alec in the subject.

I never really understood how someone who had seemed so charming and loving could change the way Hal did not long after we got married.

I can't accuse him of being the one who deflowered me, that had been achieved by one of the boys when I was at high school, but it was Hal who made me pregnant. He was very keen to marry me at the time.

My parents told me not to marry him and they'd look after me and the baby, but like most young people I knew best, and anyway, I was besotted with Hal.

So we married, but it didn't take long for the other side of Hal's personality to emerge. One aspect was a resentment of Alec. He even said he wouldn't have married me if I hadn't got pregnant and that really hurt.

Then there was the time when Hal left me. I should have seen it coming. One day he rang me to say he was bringing a colleague home to have dinner with us, he didn't say which colleague.

The colleague turned out to be a petite little blonde with big "I'm so innocent and helpless" blue eyes. She was the very opposite to me and I'm prepared to admit I'm -- how can I put it? - well say it like it is Jenny, I'm a busty buxom type.

Hal even had the gall to expect me to become friends with her -- Alice her name was. He brought her home a few more times and when Hal started to arrive home in the middle of the night and spent much of the weekends elsewhere, I finally fell in, and accused him of having an affair with her.

He didn't deny it so I told him to clear out and go to her, and he did. It was one of the few times I got my own way with him.

About six weeks after he'd left he rang me and asked if he could come back. It seemed that his little blonde wasn't quite the prize he'd thought she was, or more likely he done his Jekyll and Hyde act with her and she wasn't having any of it.

I didn't blame her, but I wasn't having Hal back either. I'd found that I could manage without a man around -- well not quite.

I wasn't sure how much Byron knew about what was happening with Hal and me, but I guessed his parents who knew about it would have told him something, or if not, Alec would have spoken to him.

It was after Hal had gone that Byron, the lovely boy -- well nearly a young man actually -- offered to do the sort of jobs round the house that a husband usually tackles. I should qualify that by saying that these days it's often the women who are better at these things than the men, but that was not the case with me.

I'd once thought that I'd like to have had a son like Byron, but that was ridiculous because I'd have had to be a very sexually precocious young girl to have given birth to him. Once he started doing the little jobs for me I began to think the other way, saying to myself, "If only I'd met someone like him before I married Hal." Hindsight can be a wonderful thing!

That of course put the age difference the other way round. Byron would have been twelve or thirteen years of age when I got pregnant and married Hal.

When Hal left me Byron had just begun his management studies and it was some time -- probably two to three months after Hal had gone - that Byron seemed to take a bit more interest in me. He often stayed with us for lunch and I would catch him staring at me.

His interest became even more obvious after the time he caught me coming out of the bathroom naked. I'd had no idea that he was even in the house, and I often went from the bathroom to my bedroom naked. I didn't mind if Alec saw me because he was used to seeing me occasionally like that, but Byron was a different proposition.

In the few seconds before I covered up with the towel I could see that look in his eyes. How can I put it, a mixture of surprise, to put it mildly, and attraction, to again put it mildly?

It was after that time that Byron began to find any reason he could to be around our place, especially with me. I couldn't fail to recognise what was going on. If he was in the kitchen with me, which was usually the place where we were together, he would sit looking at me like a hungry puppy pleading to be fed.

At first I tried to ignore it, telling myself that it was ridiculous that a young man like him should be getting worked up over someone my age. I knew about that Andrews boy they called Phally and Martha Fraser; most of us in the street knew about them, so I understood that young guys could fancy older women.

Martha Fraser was at least twenty years older than Phally but I guessed that those two were only using each other, and rumour had it that Phally had other older women on the go. In fact once outside the supermarket he tried to chat me up, but without success.

I don't know whether I was being as naïve with Byron as I'd been with Hal, but I just couldn't imagine Byron wanting to use me like Phally did Martha Fraser, and certainly I didn't want to use Byron, although at times I was tempted.

After Hal left me I was caught in a predicament. After the way Hal treated me I didn't want to trust a man again; on the other hand, I wasn't made to live like a reclusive nun. Along with this went the thought that if ever I did trust myself to a man again it would be someone like Byron.

Everything seemed to so complex; he looking at me in that hungry way and me wanting to feed him. It wasn't as if I didn't know what he wanted; I'd seen the obvious signs enough times.

That's one of the advantages or disadvantages, depending how you look at it, for women; when they're feeling horny it doesn't show in the obvious way it does with men; I mean, with the man you can see he's signaling "I want sex with you," but the woman has slightly more complex signals.

At first I told myself that Byron would get over his hankering for me, but as time went on he didn't seem to get over me, if anything the situation got hotter. In the end he seemed to run out of reasons to come calling, and I didn't ask him for any. I wanted him near me, and frustrating as it was for me -- and him too no doubt -- I wanted to experience the sexual arousal that he gave me; wanted to imagine what it would be like with him.

From my perspective at least I knew it couldn't go on. It all came to a head the week Alec was away at a scout camp. At least we could have it settled without Alec hearing or being involved.

We were in the kitchen and I was doing -- or pretending to be doing -- something at the kitchen sink. I knew he was never going to say or do anything, so I turned to him and said...

Byron's Perspective

She turned to me and said very softly, "What is it you want, Byron?"

I was dumbfounded. Whatever ever else I might have expected her to say, it was not that.

Looking at her I could see in her eyes, not the usual sad look, but something more intense. I tried to answer but couldn't frame the words, and so she went on, "If you want to make love with me, then why don't you, instead of sitting there all the time just staring at me."

"I tried again, but all that came out was, "I...I...Jenny...I..."

"Come here," she said.

I didn't move and she said again, her voice becoming peremptory, "Come here Byron."

I rose and feeling fairly shaky I went to her. When I was standing in front of her she reached up and drew my face to hers, and then she kissed me, very gently at first, but then she started to float her tongue over my lips. It was then I disgraced myself.

Jenny's Perspective

I'd found the courage to speak and I asked him what he wanted. The poor boy seemed utterly confused and couldn't answer. I felt a pang of compassion for him; I'd taken him completely by surprise with my question.

I asked him to come to me, and when he didn't move I got more forceful. Having made a beginning I wasn't going to go back, there had to be truth between us and if he was going to back out, then now was the time, so I virtually ordered him to come to me.

He rose and when he stood in front of me I pulled my body to him and kissed him and moved my mons over his penis. It was then I discovered that he was right on the edge.