The Touch Ch. 31

"Are you going to kick my arse again for sitting about smoking?" I joked.

She was carrying two white porcelain mugs of steaming black coffee. She passed me one without speaking and then sat down beside me on the steps, pulled a small mother of pearl cigarette case out of her pocket and lit herself a smoke before speaking.

"Jesus Jamie, you let me get totally pissed last night," she paused to take a long intake of smoke, "Christ I have got such a fucking hang-over this morning."

"How much do you remember?" I asked tentatively.

"If you mean do I remember you having to drive me home, yes I do. If you are asking if I remember you undressing me and putting me to bed, yes I remember that as well," she paused to give me one of her seductive Marilyn Monroe pouty smiles and pat my knee with her well manicured and painted finger tips. She did not mention my spending most of the night in her bed and I thought it best not to remind her.

We spent the next hour touring her garden, discussing the disposition of the shrubs that I had already brought over and her final selection of low border perennials and annual flowers which I had hoped to start planting in the next week. As I now had to go up to London on Wednesday I would probably put in a few hours on Monday or Tuesday and Kitty could finish off later in the week the job was well ahead and I needed to spend some time on other tasks and projects. It emphasised our need for more experienced staff.

I switched on the power to the garden electrics and tested the security spotlight, the tall globe lights that Steve had put in by the patio and the lighting for the summer house. She was really pleased and enthusiastic about everything and was back to her cooing, tactile self and clung to my arm, constantly squeezing it against her tit provocatively.

"I really am glad you are pleased," I told her as she walked with me out to the Land Rover, "I should be in London by about ten thirty on Wednesday morning, I will call you at your office when I arrive and we can meet at your flat. If you still want lunch it will be my treat this time."

"That's fine," she agreed, and then reached up and pulled my face down to hers and gave me a light but very sensual kiss full on the lips holding my lips to hers for several long seconds. Her bright red lipstick tasted of cherries. She took me by surprise and I must have given a little gasp. "Shocked by a little kiss?" She chuckled. "After undressing me, seeing me practically naked, spending the night in my bed and then running off after giving me just one tiny kiss on my boob.... I think I deserve a little kiss, don't you?" She had been seriously pissed the night before but she still remembered everything! It would not pay to underestimate Caroline Brookes at all.

We were both laughing as I got into the car, rolled down the window and leaned out to say goodbye.

"Just one final thing," she added in mock anger. "Don't you EVER leave my bed again without my permission!" She waved me away with a smile and I pulled off down the road heading for the A36 and Craven Manor.

Had she just put me on an imminent shag warning? Caroline had a great body and could be good company and the thought of getting her in the sack for real was arousing, but common sense told me that if it was going to happen then it needed to wait until after I had finished working for her, business and sex sounded fun but it was a recipe for disaster when the client was as volatile as Caroline.

It was some time since I had last visited Craven Manor and even longer since I had entered by the main gate and drive. The brick gate posts had been smartly re-pointed and sported new white stone caps and I noticed large inset hinge brackets and speculated that Georgia had ordered a set of new wrought iron gates. The old lopsided sign had been replaced with a smart new name board by the gate proudly announcing 'CRAVEN MANOR' with an arrow below pointing to one side saying 'Craven Lodge ->' in smaller lettering.

The old porter's lodge by the gate also looked as though it had had a facelift and the scrub brush and weeds had been cleared away. It was actually quite a pretty little cottage. I don't think that it had been occupied for years but the windows had been recently cleaned and there was a new overhead power line and telephone cable leading to the roof.

The long drive that swept round to the front of the house was flanked on both sides by shrubbery obscuring the view to the house until you turned the final bend. The whole drive had been resurfaced and new shingle laid, and I was pleased to see the progress that Colin and Kitty had made cutting back and coppicing the bushes and scrubby trees either side. Colin and I had discussed the best approach to dressing the welt between the drive and the uncultivated shrubbery and had decided to plant a decorative screen of mixed colour, ever-green rhododendron bushes fronted by a six foot border of lawn. The small flower beds at the front of the house would be planted up with low growing but colourful tea roses and narrow rose beds would be created in front of the high Leylandii hedge that separated the rear gardens from the drive.

Craven Manor had originally been built in the fifteenth century as the country home for a long extinct noble family and had been purchased by an ancestor of Georgia's around the turn of the century. The front face gave the impression of a classic Elizabethan house with timber frame, brick weave and tall hexagonal chimneys, but the house had been altered and rebuilt many times over the years and the building beyond the façade was mostly Victorian and Edwardian particularly at the rear.

Georgia's black Range Rover was not in the drive and so I left the Land Rover and trailer in front of the house and walked around to the terrace at the rear. The house appeared to be closed up but I could hear her dogs barking somewhere inside and guessed that she had maybe gone out for the morning. I returned to the front and unloaded the trailer and got out my tools.

Colin had already marked out with pegs and strings the site for the Rhododendron bed and so I made a start digging the top twelve inches of the ground over and then forking in the mixed shingle and pine bark mulch compost. The soil pH was within a tolerable range and the area quite well drained but we had agreed that the compost and core drainage was worth the extra effort as we were planting in the spring rather than autumn. It was getting on towards two o'clock when I had finished and I was thinking about taking a break when I heard Georgia's car scrunching up the drive.

She halted beside the Land Rover and climbed down. She looked smart and attractive as usual. She was wearing a pair of tight blue denim jeans and a plain cream shirt beneath a brown tweedy hacking jacket with leather trimmed collar and cuffs. There was a slight breeze and her dark, highlighted hair was rippling around her face.

I raised a hand in greeting and then walked over to her pulling off my thick working gloves. "Hello Georgia," I greeted her.

"Good afternoon, James," she replied smiling. "I really did not expect you to be here working on Saturday afternoon... I feel privileged."

"Not at all... You are a very special client and I would not want you to feel neglected," I grinned.

She looked at me obliquely her bright blue eyes sharp and sparkling, "Are you flirting with me?" she asked but she was smiling, she tossed her mane of shoulder length hair and her whole body language indicated that she was pleased, or at least not displeased with the idea.

I changed the subject quickly before I dropped myself soundly in the shit; I still was not really certain how far I could push the new found amity between us. "I was just finishing for the day..." I told her, "I need to clear up my things and then I shall be out of your way and leave you in peace..."

"Have you had your lunch?" she asked, "I am about to have mine so you are welcome to join me... one of the worst aspects of living alone is having to eat alone... you would be doing me a service by staying."

"That would be super... I would really like that," I enthused, I had already skipped breakfast then shagging with Philippa had completely thrown my routine and I had forgotten to pick up anything for my lunch. I speculated that loneliness at mealtimes was probably why Georgia seemed to eat out with friends or at restaurants nearly every evening.

I collected my tools and put them into the Land Rover, changed into my old deck shoes and then followed her round the house to a side door which she unlocked and then ushered me down a corridor and into the large traditional country house kitchen. There was a scrabbling of claws and her two Labradors rushed up to greet her forcing their affections on her until she crouched down to pet them. She shooed them towards the door we had come in by and out into the garden, then returned and started to spoon coffee into an ancient and blackened percolator on the huge AGA range.

"I have a big pot of homemade winter vegetable and bacon soup in the 'fridge, we can have that and I will make up some ham sandwiches and a salad."

"That sounds great... but I will skip that salad... please." I had always been highly allergic to ingested tomato in any shape or form and had therefore never really got to grips with salads, or sadly, a lot of continental dishes. I would never have admitted it in an enlightened decade but I secretly viewed salads as 'girly food', not substantial grub for a real man.

We sat at the big scrubbed pine kitchen table with our coffees, soup and sandwiches and spent almost an hour chatting about the work progress on her garden and our mutual interest in anything to do with Robin Hood.

"Thanks for lunch it was really welcome and that soup was absolutely fantastic...." I complimented her and started to clear the table for her.

She was visibly pleased with the accolade, "No, leave those; I can do the washing up later... I have something that I want to give you...." she said and led me through a doorway on the other side of the kitchen and past a large scullery to a lobby room with an outside door. There were several outdoor coats, mackintoshes and hats hanging on hooks, a row of rubber boots in various sizes and a stack of packing cases and tea crates. She made straight for one corner and pulled away a old blanket to reveal several bags of golf clubs, some of which looked seriously vintage, probably pre-war with wooden shafts and rusty blades in cracked leather bags.

"Ah, here they are... "she exclaimed and pulled out what appeared to be a brand new bright red and white golf bag with a zipped up cover. She dragged the bag into the light in front of me and unzipped the top revealing a full set of new Ping Eye2 golf clubs, the graphite shafted woods were concealed by zipped up leather head covers but most of the irons still had the factory shrink wrap on shafts and heads. "These are for you!" she said pushing them gently towards me.

They were fantastic clubs, pretty much top of the range in the UK, and I instantly itched to hold them but a set like this was really expensive, more than I would ever consider spending on myself, a sheer luxury. "Oh, Georgia...I couldn't accept...." I started.

"Yes you can, James... I WANT you to have them!" she insisted. "I bought them for my son, Charles, last year to try and get him out in the fresh air sometimes... but he really is not the slightest bit interested in anything except his studies, music and the theatre...he won't even learn to drive." I had met her son a couple of times, a rather effete, pale, slender chap in his early twenties; I could not really imagine him being interested in sport of any kind.... Or girls for that matter!

"That is so kind, but I really should pay you for them....." I had decided that I wanted those clubs and to hell with the cost.

"Absolutely NOT! You can pay me in kind...." She chuckled. The thought of what she might mean by payment-in-kind sent a thrill surging through my balls. "I told you that I wanted you as my golfing partner sometimes, when your game is back up to scratch...I shall hold you to that bargain. Anyway if I am going to have you as a playing partner you need a respectable set of clubs."

"Thank you, so much, Georgia." I said and then leaned forward and very quickly gave her a light, chaste kiss on the cheek. Our eyes locked for a moment, no more than maybe three seconds and then she broke away.

"Come on," she said, pick up that bag up and follow me..." and we were off again. She led me back through the house to a comfortable drawing room furnished with Georgian and Regency style furniture; I guessed that most of the pieces were genuine. It was one of the rooms with shuttered box windows that opened onto the balconied terrace overlooking the garden. There was a grey and white bag of Calloway ladies clubs propped by the window and she pulled out a couple of irons, grabbed up a large polythene bag of golf balls and then opened the window doors and was halfway down the curved stairs to the garden before I caught up with her.

"We shall try out those clubs.." she said and halted at the edge of the wide carpet of lawn that stretched away from the house down to the ornamental lake about 400 yards away. The grass was not in lawn quality condition, Colin had been mowing it regularly and the two of us had spent one entire afternoon pushing a heavy roller over the whole stretch but it was now neat and tidy and therefore not an immediate priority for our attention.

She tossed the bag of balls down and I could see by the scuffs and divots in surface of the grass that she regularly used the area to practice her golf strokes and suddenly recalled Colin telling me that he had found dozens of golf balls all over the gardens. In the end it was her garden and she could use it as she pleased, I was not going to be precious about a few marks on her grass.

I drew the 7 Iron out of the bag and stripped off the polythene wrapper and took a couple of practice swings. The balance and weight were perfect as you would expect from a Ping club.

Georgia had kicked at the bag until several balls were strewn on the grass in front of her, stepped up, addressed a ball and swung. The ball arched gracefully straight down the centre of the grass and came to rest about 80 yards out, I guessed she was probably holding a 9 iron. Her posture, swing and follow through were smooth and practiced but in truth it was her arse, hips and tits which had really grabbed my eye. There is something really erotic about watching an attractive and shapely woman crack away with a golf club. She hit another ball and then stood back just watching me.

I suddenly realised that she was left handed, just like Gwen and Maggie, I was left handed too in most things l did but had always played golf right handed, it just felt more comfortable. It was curious how many left handed people I knew, Gill was another one.

My first six or eight swings at the balls were hilarious and had Georgia doubled up in mirth and in the end I was laughing so much as well that I had to stop for a while. It proved the old adage that if you stopped playing golf for any length of time your game totally fell to pieces. I had balls flying in all directions except straight forward and had not managed to move one of them more than twenty yards. She went off and made us both another large mug of coffee and returned with a brand new black leather man's golfer's glove which she handed to me. It was a wee bit tight but certainly added a bit of confidence to my grip and after half and hour or so I was managing to power my ball, fairly straight down the middle for about 100 yards and was satisfied with my recovery.

She strolled out to the Land Rover with me the dogs trotting loyally behind and I tucked my new clubs safely in the cab out of harms way. I thanked her again for lunch and for her generous gift and then we exchanged a light parting kiss on each others cheek.

"If you want to practice your swing here.... Just come over anytime," she said, "there is a bucket of practice balls in the garage, your colleague, that nice Welshman usually collects them when he finds them and I pick them up when I am walking the dogs."

I didn't mention Georgia's gift to anybody until we were all discussing how we had spent our day after dinner. It was a warm evening and we had gone out to the garden and were sitting outside the summer house enjoying a cigarette and our coffees, Gwen was on one side of me and Maggie on the other. I had fetched the clubs out of the car and brought them over so that they could admire them.

"God Jamie, that's corruption, you know... accepting gifts from clients," Maggie chuckled trying hard to keep a straight face, "so what have you had to promise her in return, eh?" Maggie knew all about the golf thing, she had been there when the idea was raised at lunch on Wednesday but she wasn't going to let me off the hook without a good teasing, "Golf lessons with Scary Georgia in the garden, what next...croquet on the lawn ... or a late night SWIM in the lake perhaps?" She leaned over and gave my knee an affectionate squeeze. I guessed that Maggie's swimming jokes were going to go on for some time yet.

"I think it is very sweet of her," Gwen put in smiling. "and I think that it will be good for you to take up a sport again." She rested her hand on my other knee. "Maybe WE could play a round together?" she added. Our eyes met briefly for just a couple of seconds and I was grateful that it was dark and that the others could not see our faces, her glance held such a burning promise that it sent a tingle through my whole body. I knew that her suggestion to 'play around' had nothing to do with golf.

Just for once Emma had nothing to say, but later as we returned to the house, Maggie and Gwen walking ahead of us, she hugged my arm affectionately and said, "I don't trust that Georgia woman! Just you keep your dick in your trousers, Jay!"

"Emma don't be disgusting...." I scolded her but I couldn't help laughing which started her giggling as well. "Georgia is my lawyer.... and a client.... and she is a nice lady."

"Maybe she is...but I've seen the way you look at her arse!" she chuckled.

I look a playful swipe at hers with the back of my hand and she let out a loud shriek and ran off down the garden with me in full pursuit, Gwen and Maggie cheering us on; I finally caught her and we fell in a tangled heap at their feet as I dragged her across my legs and pretended to give her a sound spanking.

I still wasn't sure about my developing relationship with Georgia Craven. I liked her a lot and she certainly seemed to want to be friendly, I just wasn't sure why?