Catching Up

He watched as a single drop of rainwater slalomed down the window. Outside, the slate-grey sky promised no end to the relentless drizzle, and the man struggled to make out the horizon separating the blanket of clouds from the battleship-coloured sea. An icy gust of wind caused the door of the café to rattle in its frame. Refocusing his eyes on the face reflected in the glass, the man noted that perhaps a few more grey hairs had appeared in his stubble recently, and his hair, still as thick now as it had been when he was last in this sleepy seaside town fifteen years ago, was now shot through with think streaks of silver.

The man returned his attention to the steaming mug of tea in his hand, and the battered paperback lying open and face down on the counter in front of him. What was it F Scott Fitzgerald had written? "It's a funny thing about coming home. Looks the same, smells the same, feels the same. You realize what has changed is you." Well, he thought, one thing is different; everyone here now seems so much younger than before. The girl who had served him must have been barely eighteen; perhaps even younger. Young enough for him to have taught her parents at the local grammar school? Perhaps.

He turned to look around the café. A young well-to-do couple were attempting to feed their precious offspring a peculiarly orange-coloured puree from a Tupperware container. A teenage boy dressed entirely in black tried and failed to appear casual about his obvious interest in the young waitress. Another member of staff, older but still young to the man's eyes - perhaps in her late twenties - was wiping the counter down. She looked up and met his gaze for a moment; before he had the chance to look away, she flashed him a smile. It was a nice smile and he felt compelled to return it, the corners of his mouth involuntarily turning upwards like the face of a flower when the sun breaks through the clouds.

'You old fool,' he muttered, turning his attention back to his book. He had read only a sentence or two when he felt a presence next to him, and he looked up in surprise to find the smiling young woman regarding him curiously.

'Mr Stanhope?' she asked.

'That's right,' he replied. There was something familiar about the woman; the deep brown eyes, the slightly flushed cheeks, the tiny smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

'Of course you won't remember - why would you? I'm Katie Buckingham. You taught me English Literature and Business Studies.' She pointed a thumb over her shoulder, as if the school was just behind her back, instead of half her lifetime ago.

'Katie, yes I remember,' he replied. 'You used to hang out with - no don't tell me - Lea and Sara, right? You were one of my star pupils in Business Studies. But had an almost pathological dislike of Dickens, as I recall.'

Katie grimaced theatrically and gave a little shiver, causing a few long dark strands of hair to escape the loosely tied bun at the back of her head.

'Sorry,' she laughed. 'We couldn't have made it easy for you.'

'Not even close,' he agreed. 'But that's not to say I didn't enjoy trying.'

'Awww,' she giggled. 'So, you're back in town, Mr Stanhope. Have you moved back?'

He puffed out his cheeks. 'No, just visiting. Hey, it's been fifteen years - I'm not your teacher and you're not my pupil - so I'm pretty sure you can call me Luke.'

Katie's already flushed cheeks became a shade pinker, and Luke watched with some amusement as she fiddled with the notepad hanging from the belt of her apron. She bit her lower lip as if considering whether or not to say something, before decisively nodding her head once.

'You know, when I was a pupil of yours, I probably would have passed out with excitement to hear you say I could call you by your first name. Funny, isn't it? We're just people, after all. Why shouldn't two people call each other by their names? It's not like I'm still some silly little schoolgirl.'

Luke had to admit that Katie was right on at least that last point - she was certainly no longer a girl. And in that moment, a terrible and magnificent realisation came over him; it was no longer forbidden for him to think of this beautiful creature as something more than a mind to be taught, a soul to be nurtured. She was a lovely young woman, beyond her first flush of youth but now absolutely in her prime. Of course, that also meant that instead of the hip young teacher in his early thirties, he was now a middle-aged man, who bought his socks from Marks & Spencer and was considering going back to vinyl records.

In the fraction of a moment between those last two thoughts, the world had opened up for Luke Stanhope. Now, faced by his own middle-age and the unobtainability of the lovely young woman in front of him, the grey clouds outside had worked their way into the café and surrounded him in a frozen embrace.

'Are you okay?' Katie asked, concern appearing on her face.

'Hmm? Sorry, yes, just felt a little old there for a moment. It happens.' He smiled in an effort to shrug it off.

'Old?' Katie laughed, unconsciously reaching out to touch his arm. 'Are you kidding? Apart from that whole sexy salt-and-pepper thing going on with your hair, you don't look a day older than when you left town. I reckon plenty of my classmates would rediscover their crush on you, given half a chance.'

Crush?

'I'm sorry? What?'

Katie playfully pushed at his arm. 'Oh, come on. There's no way on earth you didn't know the effect you had on the girls back then.'

Now it was Luke's turn to blush. He suppressed a cough and took a hasty gulp of tea, his eyes turned to the floor. 'Well, I tried not to think about things like that. There are... rules. Moral obligations.'

'Oh sure, sure,' continued Katie, clearly warming to the subject. 'But when you left to get married... oh, the hearts you broke in this town!'

Luke looked her squarely in the eyes. She was just teasing, surely? But no, in her face, all he saw was honesty. And something else. She was biting her lip again and her hand was now fiddling with the locket hanging around her neck. Despite the coolness of the day outside, Katie was wearing a simple blouse beneath her apron, undone enough to expose her long elegant neck, her tanned upper chest, and just the hint of cleavage.

'Are, um, you still married? Continued Katie.

'Ha. That lasted just about as long as your interest in A Tale of Two Cities, I'm afraid.'

Katie nodded. 'Then, it wouldn't be inappropriate to invite you out for a drink tonight? I'd love to catch-up.'

'Inappropriate? No.' He wanted to say more, to suggest that it would be unusual, peculiar even, but knew that to do so would suggest that he thought that her interest in him was romantic in nature. As much as he suddenly, almost desperately, wanted that to be the case, it seemed to him to be highly unlikely. Who did he think he was kidding, he asked himself.

Katie beamed at him. 'Great. How about The Sun at 7:30?' She scribbled a phone number on her notepad, before tearing the page off and handing it to him. Across the room, the teenager in black had finally managed to engage the young waitress in conversation, leaving the young couple dawdling at the counter while they waited to pay their bill.

'I, uh, better get back to it,' Katie said, reluctantly backing away.

'Oh yes,' Luke replied. 'I wouldn't want to get you into trouble with the boss.'

Katie laughed again. 'No chance of that - I own the place. And the ice cream parlour. And the cinema.'

----

As Luke struggled along the promenade against the blustery wind, he thought back to the peculiar conversation with the beautiful former student. If he didn't know any better, it had had all the hallmarks of a teenage flirtation, like the young waitress and her love-struck admirer in black. Was this a date he had somehow managed to agree to go on? Once more, he tried to convince himself that it was all entirely innocent - but still, he thought, catching a glimpse of a slightly scruffy middle-aged man reflected in the window of a tourist information bureau, there was no harm in making a bit of an effort with his appearance this evening.

He passed an elderly couple huddled together in a shelter, a shared tartan blanket hanging from their waists like a gigantic blue, red and green skirt. They were holding hands and staring happily out to sea, not looking for the horizon.

----

'So it was the three of you who painted the school gates pink!'

Katie shrugged modestly. 'It was breast cancer awareness week. You know - "wear something pink" - but the school's dress code didn't allow that, so we thought we would, um, show our support another way.'

The two of them laughed, then lapsed into silence. For a moment, Luke tried to think of the next thing to say, then decided that there was no need. The brief silences between them were somehow comfortable, almost reassuring. He could tell that the young woman wasn't bored with his company; she made no effort to see what else was happening around them, despite the many admiring glances thrown in her direction from around the bar.

'So tell me how you're single?' Luke asked.

Katie rolled her eyes, a lock of mock weariness on her face. 'You first,' she replied.

'There's nothing really to tell. We just grew apart. No - not quite that. She grew apart from me.' Luke shrugged. 'There was no bitterness.' He looked up from his drink and noted the raised eyebrow on the face of the woman across from him.

'Well, OK, there was a little bitterness.'

Katie laughed, not with any malice, or from the obvious discomfort being experienced by the older man. He had admitted something he didn't want to. It was only a small thing, but Luke felt - knew - that it was a sign that he was opening up to her, and that that made her happy.

'You didn't have children?' she asked.

Luke shook his head, then looked up at her and nodded. 'Your turn.'

Katie sighed. 'You know how this town is. Nothing really changes - and certainly not the people. All the men my age are the same ones I knew when I was a kid; any interest I might have had in any of them is long gone.'

'So... what? You've given up? Going to stay single forever?'

Katie leaned forward in earnest. 'Single's not so bad. I have work to keep me occupied.'

'My god, that sounds bleak enough coming from someone my age, but from someone as young as you? Yuck!' Luke involuntarily reached out and took her hand, then immediately withdrew. For a moment Katie smiled down at her own hand, then up at the man opposite her.

'I seem to remember an old Business Studies teacher of mine extolling the many virtues of a fulfilling career,' she said, pointedly.

'Hey, less of the "old", if you don't mind,' Luke replied. 'And I wasn't suggesting that work was all you needed. You know, an extremely wise woman once said, "Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life."

Katie blew a short but noisy raspberry. 'There he is - the English teacher. So who said that one? Jane Austen? One of the Bronte sisters?'

Luke laughed. 'Well, if you absolutely must know it was Dolly Parton. An incredibly smart woman, is Dolly.'

'You don't have to tell me. You know, that's probably the most relatable source of a quote that I've ever heard you reference. Anyway, I can still have a life outside of work. Maybe I might get a dog eventually.' She giggled. 'Or twenty cats.'

Luke blew a raspberry of his own, and the two of them sat there, silently smiling at each other for a few moments.

'I'm not sure I have a right to be, but I'm proud of you, Katie,' he said.

A faint blush appeared on Katie's cheeks. 'I want you to be proud of me. It's always been important to me, even though you weren't here anymore.'

'Even when you were giving me shit about making you read boring old Dickens?'

She laughed. 'Didn't it ever occur to you that I was just playing up to get your attention?'

'Well, it worked.'

Katie drained the last of her drink and stood up, waving the empty glass enquiringly at Luke. He nodded and watched as she turned and walked to the bar. Not for the first time that evening, he took the opportunity to admire her figure, shown off to perfection by the off-the-shoulder, tight-fitting black dress she wore. He bit his lip as he tried to forget how many times since they had sat down that he had caught himself gazing at her cleavage. There's no way she hadn't noticed, was there?

As Katie collected the drinks and headed back towards the table, the barmaid nodded in Luke's direction and said something that he couldn't quite make out. The two women laughed, Katie's long dark hair bouncing as she shook her head in apparent disbelief.

'What's so funny?' Luke asked as Katie retook her seat opposite him, immediately cursing himself for the obvious hurt in his voice.

Katie nodded back towards the barmaid. 'She thinks you've scared off a good half dozen guys who've wanted to come over to talk to me tonight.'

'Christ. They probably think you're out with your father.'

Katie tilted her head in surprise. 'You think I dress like this for my dad?'

Luke thought back to Katie's long, stocking-clad legs and lethal-looking high heels that had caught his eye when she had first arrived at the bar. 'Hmm, probably not.'

'Besides, this is nothing. If Lea was here with you instead of me, she would have been far less subtle.'

'Subtle?' he asked.

'About her crush on you. Most of the girls in the class - hell, the whole bloody school - had a crush on the gorgeous Mr Stanhope.'

Luke felt his heartbeat quicken. Was she saying what he thought she was saying? How was he supposed to respond to that? He took a deep breath.

'And you?' he asked.

She looked him square in the eyes. 'I learned more about my body from thinking about you than I did in all of Mrs Murray's sex education classes combined. I lost my virginity thinking about you.'

His mouth suddenly dry, Luke found his gaze drifting to the cleavage openly displayed by the low-cut dress, and the black lace of the strapless bra which it barely concealed.

'Caught you!' cried Katie. 'I was wondering what it would take to get you to actually take a proper look at me.'

Luke blushed a deep crimson. 'Well, I'm only human,' he muttered.

Katie dropped her shoulders and leaned forward, bringing more of the black lace into view. Luke noted a faint smattering of freckles leading a trail from her neck down into the tapering valley between her breasts.

'If you're going to look, then look,' Katie whispered firmly.

'Christ, Katie,' Luke replied. For a few seconds he struggled for the right words, as his companion watched him with a wry expression on her face. 'I'm old enough to be your father.'

Katie folded her hands together on the table in front of her, her forearms amplifying her cleavage even further. 'Why do you think I'm here, Luke? For that matter, why are you here? To "catch-up"?'

'That's what you said,' he stated flatly.

Katie sat back and stared at him, not unkindly, but with burgeoning determination. 'Fine,' she eventually whispered, pushing her chair back and quietly standing up. 'I guess we caught up, didn't we?'

For the second time in ten minutes, Luke watched the lovely young woman walk away from him. This time, as she slipped her jacket on and left the bar, the boyish grin that had been plastered on his face since he had walked out of her café earlier that afternoon had deserted him.

----

'Katie, wait!'

Luke dashed through the rain to catch up, barely stopping himself from grabbing her by the arm before she stopped and turned to face him. He ducked beneath her umbrella, bringing himself closer to her than he had intended.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'Look, I don't know what's going on here. I have all these thoughts rushing through my head and I don't know what to make of them. I'm thinking you like me, but I don't know if it's okay to like you back, given our history, and the difference in our ages, and...'

He wanted to say more, but the soft lips pressing against his mouth stopped any further words coming out. He breathed her in - not just her scent but her essence, her beauty. He felt her tongue tentatively reach into his mouth; he welcomed it, met it with his own. She moaned softly, the sound barely audible above the steady drumbeat on the canopy of the umbrella above their heads.

As Katie pulled back from the kiss, she looked up at him and this time Luke could see uncertainty in her eyes. No, not uncertainty... it was fear. What did this heavenly creature have to fear from him, he asked himself. She held all the cards here, and surely she knew that? And then, in that moment, he saw it - a vulnerability, a loneliness buried beneath layers of confidence as a beautiful, intelligent, successful young woman. He reached up, cupped her face in his hands and pulled her closer. Tilting his face to one side, he pressed his mouth to hers. She closed her eyes, surrendering herself first to his lips, then to his tongue. Still clutching the umbrella in one hand, she slipped her free arm around his back, clenching him to her, her breasts soft and yielding against his chest.

Finally, he pulled back and watched her face as she remained perfectly still, her eyes closed, the whiteness of her teeth showing through her slightly opened mouth.

'I have a horrible feeling that you have unrealistic expectations of me,' he sighed.

Her eyes opened and with a warm smile, she replied 'Maybe. I'll let you know in the morning.'

----

The walk to Katie's house was both the quickest and slowest ten minutes of Luke's life. His mind was a whirlwind of conflicting emotions, all of them countered by the overwhelming passion he felt for this woman and his desire to receive the unexpected lust she so clearly felt for him. At a tidy Victorian red-brick terrace house a short walk from the seafront, they stumbled into the hallway and slammed the door shut using the weight of their entwined bodies. Katie dragged the coat from his shoulders and threw it across the floor, then dragged him by the belt along the corridor and up the stairs. Halfway up, they stopped again,and Luke buried his face into the soft skin behind Katie's jaw, peppering her neck with kisses while she struggled out of her own coat. Finally at the door of the bedroom, she pulled the tails of his shirt out of his jeans and pulled it all the way over his head; by the time they had made it to the bed, his shoes and socks were gone too.

'You don't know how many times I've fantasised about this moment, Luke; dreamed about your body on top of mine, inside mine,' Katie cooed. She reached behind her back to drag down the zip on her dress, then shrugged it down her body, revealing the strapless black bra that had been teasing Luke all evening. Katie pulled the dress down over her hips and let it drop to the floor; she stood before him and he marvelled at the sight of her in matching bra and panties, with hold-up stockings and black high heels completing the set. She smiled at the open lust on his face, as she lay back on the bed. Without taking his eyes from the magnificent body of the woman before him, Luke took off his jeans, leaving him in only his boxer shorts. Katie gave a brief gasp at the obvious stiffness hidden behind the thin black material which only slightly disguised a single wet spot of pre-cum.

Katie reached for Luke's cock, but he gently batted her hand away. He'd been turned on for most of the evening, particularly since Katie's revelation about his impact on her sexual education. He needed to slow things down a little if he was going to last beyond the next sixty seconds.

Luke climbed on top of Katie's welcoming body, her arms urgently pulling his face against hers for a deep kiss. Once more, he turned his face to one side to taste the silky skin beneath her ear, then down to her neck, then her chest. His body slid down against her as he rained kisses down on her cleavage, then her stomach, and Katie groaned as she anticipated his ultimate destination. Luke pressed his lips against the already-soaked lace covering her pussy, then slipped his fingers into the sides of her panties before pulling them out from under her and down her legs. He knelt on the floor and pulled her towards him so that her legs were hanging over the edge of the bed. He looked up past the glistening lips of her pussy, the neatly trimmed thatch of pubic hair, and between the lace-wrapped peaks of her breasts at her beautiful face. Their eyes met as he lovingly kissed inside each of her thighs, wrapped in their silky stockings topped with a strip of intricate lace, coming closer, ever closer, to her pussy. He slipped the panties past one of her high-heeled shoes, but they became snagged on the other, and before he could free them completely, Katie gripped the back of his head and dragged his face back between her thighs.