Blue-Eyed Nurses

I wanted to bring up the subject of the photo I had seen in Dad's bedroom but I didn't want to spoil the mood at that point. It had been a long time since I had sat down with a handsome and respectable woman for a very pleasant meal, despite the circumstances leading to our meeting together. Where there are highly-paid oilmen with lots of ready cash and a long ways from home, there were lots of disreputable women, women I had always steered well clear of. I was interested in Maureen, though, she was attractive and pleasant company. I just wasn't quite sure how respectable Maureen was, bearing in mind the photo and its location. Secrets have a way of poisoning relationships and there were clearly secrets here.

I had so many questions in my head: clearly she was or had been my father's lover. Was this in the last ten years since her husband died? Or was Maureen seeing Dad while she was still married? Why was her daughter Rosemary in the picture, too? The photo wasn't recent, judging by Maureen's appearance as a young woman, how old had Rosemary been when she died? Less than twenty, as she mentioned being over here twenty years and at least a bit older than ten years when Maureen's husband died?

We finished our meal and, before we cleared the things away, I asked her to accompany me as I looked around the garden. She smiled and tucked her arm in mine. Oh boy! I thought, is this a like-father like-son situation? My mind was spinning. I turned my attention and conversation to the garden.

The lawn badly needed cutting, daisies were already poking their cheerful little faces up at the sunshine above the long grass. I could see the odd defiant dandelion, too. Daffodils were in full bloom in the borders with crocus and snowdrops fading away. A couple of early tulips also brightened the scene with a splash of pink.

"Never had a garden before," I said.

"I've got a small one," Maureen said, "I could lend you a hand...."

She continued walking but cut the sentence off short, before saying too much. Where were we going with this I wondered? Now was the time to say something, I thought.

"Maureen," I asked, our arms still comfortably linked, "I would like to show you something upstairs."

She stopped walking and pulled her arm out from mine and looking shocked at my suggestion, her face suddenly pale.

"I'm sorry," I apologised hastily, "That came out very badly and certainly not at all what I meant. There ... there is a photograph in my father's bedroom that I would like you to see."

There was even more alarm on her face at that than before.

"A ... a photograph?" she was very pale, now.

"Yes, a photo of you-"

She fainted. I was close enough and was already reaching out to her, so I caught her limp body before she hit the ground. I picked her up, she was light as a feather, and carried her into the conservatory and laid her on a cane settee, fitted with a flowery upholstery in pastel shades. I placed cushions under her head and made sure she was still breathing. I fetched a tea towel and hand towel from the pile that Maureen had freshly laundered and dried in the kitchen. I quickly doused the tea towel in cold water and grabbed a glass and filled that with cold water too. I knelt by her side, pressing the cooling towel to her forehead.

She laid there, still as anything, for what was probably just a few seconds, maybe a minute, it just seemed to me a much longer period. I stared at her as I gently pressed the cold wet towel to her head. Her face in repose was open and beautiful, considering she mist have been in her mid-40s, much older than I originally estimated. Completely unadorned with make-up, her skin was pale but unblemished, her hair eyebrows natural and un-plucked, her fair eyelashes long and curving up gracefully. All of the sorrows of losing her daughter, alongside her nervousness of my discovery of her relationship with my father, had drained from her relaxed face. I had thought of her as handsome and attractive before, now I could only think she was lovely, adorable even.

Soon, in her own good time, she stirred, fluttered and opened her eyes and tried to sit up. I pressed gently down on her shoulders.

"Maureen," I said softly, holding her still, "You've had a bit of a shock, please lie quietly, breathe slowly and deeply, calm down, you are perfectly safe. There is nothing you could say that would make me think any less of you, my love, than I do now."

She stopped struggling to get up, looking up at me, her eyes filling up with tears, which ran down her cheeks before her shoulders started shaking as she cried. I moved my arms from her shoulders to behind her back, pulling her up to press her head into my chest. Her hands lifted from her side and wrapped themselves around my back, clinging to me as if her very life depended on it, her whole body wracked with big heavy sobs.

"Let it all out Maureen, please don't bottle it up, my dear sweet heart," I kissed the top of her head, "You are not alone in this, you never need to be alone again. We are family, you and I, we can both share our sorrow. There's no more need for secrets between us."

"No more secrets," she sobbed, "What must you t'hink of me?"

"I think you are a beautiful woman that my Dad must've loved very much," I said, "He kept a picture of you and your daughter by his bed. It would have been the very last thing he saw when he went to sleep and the very first sight to wake up to at the start of every day."

"I must go look."

"No, sweetheart, lay here for a few moments," I reached across and picked up the glass of water from the coffee table and offered it to her, "Sip this and I will fetch it down for you."

"No," she insisted, "I want to see where it is for myself, Roger."

She took the glass with one hand and sipped some water, her other hand still wound around my back, holding a handful of my shirt, stopping me from leaving her. For some reason the gesture warmed me and made me smile happily. Maureen regarded my gentle smile over the glass's rim, hopefully taking heart herself from it.

"No more secrets," she whispered, "This is going to be difficult, you look so much like Frank, Roger, and he looked so much like you."

"There's no rush, Maureen. I think it will help us both to look at the photo and talk. You need to come to terms with your loss, both our losses, me too. Was - I'm sorry to have to ask this - was Rosemary my sister?"

She looked at me with those baleful eyes, focusing from one eye to the other as she thought of what to reply. There was only one reply, we both knew that now, but voicing it still took courage, on both sides.

"Yes, she was, but I never told Frank about Rosemary. I never wanted him to find out about her and never imagined for a moment that he knew that she was. Also, I never told Rosemary who her real father was. I gave her no reason to believe Bob wasn't her natural dad." She bit her lip and looked away. "I can't understand how Frank had a picture of both Rosemary and me together. I cannot see how it is possible."

She returned her blue eyes to gaze at me again.

"I must see that photo, Roger. Let me up, please?"

I kissed her on the forehead and released her, got up off my knees and relieved her of the glass. She swung her legs around and I helped her up. She was still wobbly on her feet. I decided there and then to just pick her up in my arms, laughing at the sheer pleasure of doing so. She returned with her tinkling laugh and put her arms around my neck. I carried her through the dining room and into the hallway and carefully up the stairs.

We were still laughing when she pressed her lips to mine and we started kissing, slowly at first and then more passionately as our tongues fought to outdo each other. Her hands were behind my head pulling me into her face with an urgency that had become so unfamiliar to me for so long.

I carried on climbing, my eyes closed, relying on memory, counting the steps, ten, feeling for the angled turn, then three more steps to the top. I reached the landing and kicked open Dad's bedroom door.

"No, please," she said, breaking off our kiss, insisting, "Your room."

I turned and headed down the corridor, past the bathroom and spare bedroom until I reached my old room at the end. I fumbled with the handle as Maureen giggled, and we entered the room. The curtains were open and we both looked around. It appeared to be exactly as it had when I was just 17 and left this room, I had thought then, for good. I looked at Maureen.

"Have you been in this room before?"

She nodded, her smile now a little uncertain, wondering what I was thinking as she looked into my eyes, "I peeked, a long time ago, nearly twenty years. I was only here in this house half a dozen times, Roger, and never while Bobby was here."

I nodded this time. Then I kissed her again, my eyes half open. She returned the kiss and held me tight, her shoulder started their up and down movements again as she cried silently and I felt the wetness on her cheek. I gently laid her on my old single bed. Maintaining our delicious mouth to mouth contact, I leaned over her but with one knee on the bed and one foot on the floor.

I still had my arms around her but broke off the kiss for a moment.

"Sweetheart, we don't have to do this," I said, kissing her again, "I remember everything now, I think I've been waiting for you for a long time."

"You remember ... everyt'hing?"

"I think so, not necessarily all the details, I was very drunk, if you remember."

"You were not that drunk that night you spent with my Momma! I have loved you, Roger, since that night, I've loved you for 38 years. I thought I had lost you and would never find you." She sobbed again, "I gave up on you honey, almost as soon as I started looking for you. I am so sorry, I-"

"Hush, sweetheart," I interrupted, "I'm here now. You've found me and I've found you. I will always be here as long as you want me to be, sweetheart. I wasn't actively looking for you, Maureen, but I have been sort of waiting for you all this time. I think I have loved you for ever, too!"

"Oh, honey," she pulled me down onto her and we kissed and started pulling our clothes off each other and making a right hash of it, our hands getting in the way. We both started giggling. Then I stood up and pulled off my shirt, she sat up and undid her green blouse and bra, throwing them on the floor. I dropped my trousers and boxer shorts, sat beside her on the bed and pulled off my shoes and socks and kicked off my trousers and pants. Maureen was lying on her back by then, wriggling off her skirt and panties, kicking them off the bottom of the bed. She smiled at me.

"I do love you Roger," she breathed.

"You were just a little girl, a beautiful angel. You are still a girl to me, still beautiful, and still an angel. I thought that you were the prettiest thing in the whole wide world but I hadn't seen much of the world back then, we were both innocent kids. I've seen much of the world since and I have not viewed anything that comes even close to the magic image of you that I have always carried within my memory."

I picked up her right foot and kissed the soft skin of her sole as I stroked and squeezed her calf and knee. I licked her toes and sucked her big toe into my mouth, teasing it with my tongue, still sitting naked on the side of the bed. She giggled and grasped my right forearm and pulled herself up, bending her lovely knee, her right hand playing with the hairs on my chest, tweaking my nipples, making me chuckle as I sucked each toe in turn, licking the sweet spaces in between. She moved her hand up to stroke my neck, running her thumb along the line of my jaw, then stroking my cheek, a delicious smile on her gorgeous face.

"You were so sweet and gentle," she said, "When Momma woke me and led me to the armchair, so you could use the bed, you asked Momma to put me back in bed to sleep. You said that you could just sit and talk, and your friends wouldn't know. But Momma said she was a professional, she'd been paid to pop your cherry and she was damn well going to pop it!" Maureen giggled, "She could be quite determined, my mother."

"And how determined were you, my love?"

"I came here looking for you, didn't I? I came when I could, I was that determined."

"And I never came back, until now." I was nibbling her ankle, then kissing the back of her calf.

"You did come back, briefly, Roger, I saw you t'hrough the crack in the door, I was in here, hiding from you."

"When I last visited Dad?" I asked, "Did he know that you were looking for me?"

"No, of course not," she breathed, "By then I knew I was pregnant but hadn't quite summoned up the courage to tell Frank. I overheard you say you were going, and I knew from the way you said it, you were never going to return. How could I say anything to Frank? How could I destroy him? How could I justify myself to you or to your father? You were still married with a son and lost to me and I was just as lost to Frank in my love with you. I couldn't do that to Frank, have him waiting, hoping you'd never come back. I had to leave him too, no matter how painful it was."

I couldn't stop kissing her, her breathing deep, punctuated by a groan and then delightful squeals as I put her foot down on the bed and started to lick and kiss and nip the inside of her milky white thighs, working my way up to her untidy triangle of tangled fair fur covering her sex.

"You were so gentle at Momma's, tucking the spare blanket, that was always there on the chair, around me and you stroked my cheek and kissed me on the forehead and told me not to be frightened. You assured me that no-one was going to be hurt, that everyt'hing would be all right and I was to go back to sleep. When you touched my cheek it was like an electric shock."

"I remember that touch, I also felt something magical between us but you were so young. I don't kiss little girls as a rule," I chuckled, "I don't even remember going so far as kissing you at the time, I was drunk, I think."

"You probably were, but that didn't stop you being who you are, honey, a warm, gentle, caring, loving man, even then so mature beyond your years."

"I remembered my own home life all too clearly, having a single parent to whom I was an inconvenience. I couldn't bear the thought of supplanting you in your mother's temporary affections."

"So you tried to deflect her by making me the centre of attention for a few moments."

"I was terrified, too, darling," I owned up between our kisses, "if you remember, that it was my first time. I had never even seen a woman as beautiful as your mother before, nor ever been intimate with a woman before. I couldn't believe that someone so beautiful was prepared to sleep with me. I was a complete beginner."

"Didn't you have girlfriends ... before?" Maureen took in a short intake of breath as I skirted around her aroused and headily-scented sex and kissed and nibbled her softly rounded belly, dipping my tongue into her belly button.

"I was lanky, uncoordinated, angry at my father and the world at large, I didn't make any friends easily. I lived in my own little bubble of rage, no-one could touch me. I had no friends, no girlfriends. The Navy beat the anger out of me very quickly, though."

I licked around her soft flattened breasts, sucking first on one nipple, then the other. Resting on one elbow I softly stroked her thighs with the tips of my fingers up as far as the edge of her fur, then down again.

"I didn't sleep at all that night," Maureen said, "I listened to every word, every sound you made. Momma asked you about yourself, your name and your home town. You spoke of your Mam leaving, your Dad's successful garage that he wanted you to join him in the business, but you opted for the Navy. I soaked up everyt'hing like a sponge. At other times, when Momma entertained men, I always kept my hands over my ears, shutting out the sounds, filling my head with songs and music, my eyes screwed shut, tensing for the violence towards Momma that happened so often."

I kissed her collarbones and nibbled her neck, she buried her fingers of one hand into my short-cut hair and pulled my head towards her waiting lips and kissed me deeply.

"Momma called you beautiful, marvelling at how you were so hard and yet so soft." Maureen caressed my engorged cock with her other hand, "Just as you are now," as our lips met again.

She guided me into her wet place and I pushed in gently at her inviting opening.

"Gently, my love, it's been a long time for me."

"A long time for me too."

She was tight, so tight, but slick, I couldn't tell how far I was in, perhaps halfway, but she was too tight to go any further, I started to pull out.

"No, no, deeper," she said.

I pushed again, a little harder. Maureen sighed, "You are so big."

"I don't want to hurt you, sweetheart," I said.

"You aren't honey," she assured me, sucking in my tongue and releasing it, "You are wonderful, sweet and gentle, so loving. Just don't stop, please don't stop."

I grinned, looking down on her and chuckled, "I will never hurt you, Maureen, my love."

"I know."

I started stroking my cock in and out slowly, Maureen rising her hips to meet me. I was only using shallow strokes and looked down between her breasts to see how I was doing and was amazed to see I was virtually fully in. I pressed in just a little harder and our pelvises ground together. I looked back up to her face. Maureen's eyes were closed, a smile on her parted lips, her breathing heavy. I mashed myself to her a little harder, she matched my thrust upwards just as hard, a grimace appeared on her face.

"OK?"

"Very OK," she opened her eyes, they were round and shiny, the deepest blue, like the ocean off Honduras, "Don't stop, whatever you do, don't stop."

"I don't think I'm going to last very long, sweetheart."

"Nor me honey, just go for it. Then we can always go again, can't we, please?"

"You can bet on it, sweetheart," I laughed, "I love you so much, Maureen."

"I love you too, Roger, I always have."



CHAPTER 4

We laid there sated for a while, her on top of me. Not dozing exactly, but certainly relaxed, and we talked. I wanted to talk to her about my father but I thought she would probably prefer to talk about her daughter.

"Tell me about Rosemary," I opened.

Maureen lifted her head off my breast where I had felt the pleasure of her breathing on my chest hairs and she looked at me with those lovely blue eyes.

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

"Well, Rosemary was born at eleven minutes past two in the morning, she weighed six pounds ten ounces, it wasn't a difficult birth but the air was pretty blue ..." her voice trailed off as she looked at me with both her eyebrows lifted.

"Alright," I chuckled, "I'll go with the short version, first."

Maureen settled back down on my chest again. That felt so good, as good as the sex had been. All right, almost as good, nice.

"She was a lovely girl, no mother could ever wish for a better daughter."

She paused for a moment, thinking, I felt more of her tears drip onto my chest. I already had my arms around her and I squeezed her tightly and gently kissed the top of her head. Her hand resting on my chest clenched, pulling at my chest hairs. I don't think she realised how hard she was pulling them, I had tears in my eyes, too.

I changed tack.

"Tell me how you met my Dad, Frank."

"I need to go back a bit, sweetheart, to put it in context. I was really looking for you ... and found Frank along the way."

"OK, start at the beginning. We have all the time in the world."

"I lived with my Aunt Rose for as long as I remember. She told me that when Momma fell pregnant, from her first boyfriend, who had gone to England to find work, and never came back. Her family just kicked her out. She moved to Cork to have me. Aunt Rose was much older, by about fifteen years, and helped Momma with a little money but it was never enough. She worked in a bar and was amenable to earn a little more on the side. Momma kept me for a while until I became too much of a handful, so Aunt Rose took me on. I never knew any of my other Aunts and Uncles. Rose kept me hidden from them all, knowing they would have not'hing to do with me or Momma. Then Rose fell ill when I was about ten and Momma had to fetch me. So I lived with her for a couple of months or so. That was when you came to call. After a while, Rose was better and I went back home to live with her, and care for her as she was never quite as well again."