Moments Of Loving Distraction

They strolled along the beach; the pristine, almost white, sands stretching out before them and the villa not so far away. It had been placed at the top of the grass-tufted dunes and so offered uninterrupted views of the beach. Its deck and the steps leading down onto the strand could still be seen, along with the clap-boarded walls of the property that its owners had painted an azure blue, just like the cloudless sky above them.

Elspeth and Melanie, mother and daughter chattered happily enough, a laugh escaping their lips as they stepped away from a surge of the sea; Melanie carrying her sandals in one hand, Elspeth barefoot, her sandals dangling from her grandson's carrier that Guy had fastened onto his back. His son's sun hat rubbed at his billowing long hair that he felt obliged to regularly sweep back from his slender, high-cheeked face. He stepped assuredly through the surf, unbothered if it soaked his swimming shorts, his son's squeals of delight soon showing that he enjoyed the experience but a fierce clutch on his father's hair soon telling Guy if he had overdone his adventurous ways of it.

'Careful!' Melanie called out, moving away from Elspeth and coming to him, the frilly edges of the kaftan that she wore soon sodden. 'Don't go out so far...you may stumble. Don't take risks!'

How easy it was for her to get snappy with him, Guy thought. He caught a considerate smile cast his way as Elspeth looked on. The woman understood him and was often to be thought of as an ally even if she never got directly involved when they had differences of opinion. It was happening more often, Melanie giving voice to her frustration that having a young child had her feeling trapped.

'It's okay...don't fret so.'

'Well, I do!' Melanie retorted in evident annoyance. 'Otherwise, give him to me and I'll carry him.' Melanie looked back to the house. 'He'll soon need a rest so we may as well turn back.'

'We've not gone so far, dear,' Elspeth said reassuringly. 'A few moments more and then we can all turn back...'

'Or go for a swim?' Guy suggested looking at each of them in turn. 'I can then get the barbie going for our lunch...after that.'

'If that husband of mine gets back in time,' Elspeth now said, pushing her hands through the tumble of her luxuriant black hair. 'He can't wait to get away and play golf. He's probably talking someone into guiding him around whatever public course he's decided to go to this time...and the next.'

Guy heard the evident annoyance in her voice and saw Elspeth fumble with the flesh-coloured bindings on her wrists. The woman before him was tanning nicely, the dusting of freckles to her skin already evident and to be seen on her breastbone, to the soft swell of her breasts, and upon slender arms that a sleeveless navy-blue beach dress, with its pattern of large flowers, revealed to his gaze. She fussed over her bindings once more, her arthritis something that she struggled to live with. But she would not be cowed by her condition while she was on holiday.

'Take them off, just for a while, Elspeth?' he urged now, consideration in his tone.

'I want to...how I want to do that,' she replied, looking his way and already knowing what Melanie would say to that. 'I'll have a mark on my wrists and hands if I don't.'

'Then take them off then, who is to know?' he persisted, trying to convince her. Guy felt Melanie fuss over their boy and met her silencing stare upon him as she did so.

'The people who care for Mum, that's who!' she now told them, snippily.

'Yes, dear...I think I know that too by now.'

'Don't say it like that, Mum! You know very well what the doctors, and the hospital, have said about those support bandages...'

'But not that they're ugly and so painful sometimes.' Elspeth stood still and she turned to meet the breeze that blew in off the sea. She was seen to lift her face to the sun and Guy was captivated. He saw how the breeze outlined her figure under that dress. Guy thought Elspeth to be maddeningly attractive then, her hair caught on the breeze and her troubles fleetingly forgotten. 'I'm with Guy on this...' She had turned to face them as she said it. 'A few minutes without them, that's all I ask. I get a holiday from those braces too...'

Melanie fussed over her infant boy once more. It was clear that she suppressed her annoyance with what she was hearing, from both of them.

'You'll do as you want, I know.' Melanie tugged on the child carrier's straps. 'I'll take Jonny home...prep a few things and give him a feed and hope that he settles as we have lunch.'

'We'll all go back,' Elspeth suggested, keeping her lack of enthusiasm for the idea from her voice.

'And what about your swim?' Melanie glared at Guy.

'I'll do that on the way back. I might even persuade Elspeth to do that...but only if she takes off those braces.'

'My thoughts exactly,' Elspeth laughed, impulsively holding out her arms to him and Guy began to unfasten them. Melanie fumed.

'I'm going! The two of you really don't understand what they're for, do you?' She did nothing as Guy shoved the bindings into a pocket of the carrier. 'Don't be long then...'

'We won't be,' Guy retorted as Melanie began to walk away from them, shifting the weight of the carrier on her back. The straps were soon held by her slender-fingered hands to stop them from digging into her shoulders. 'Don't be so angry, please. Elspeth needs a break from everything that's going on in her life too. Ken, your father...he's amusing himself with his golf so we're some company for Elspeth.'

Guy said it on closing the space between them for a moment.

'Go on, she's looking our way! Just doesn't tire her or we'll all suffer for it...'

'Jeez! You can be harsh on her!'

Elspeth looked on as she stood some distance away but had watched them talking animatedly before she saw how Guy turn to her for an instant. It was clear she was again the subject of their exchanges. She loved Guy for his refusal to accept the controlling ways of the others, even here on a wide stretch of an almost deserted beach and the time that she spent under the warmth of the sun that bestowed uncommon comfort upon her.

'Yeah,' Melanie sighed, stopping a while to look at him, then at Elspeth. 'I'm the one, though, who will have to care for her when things go bad. Those braces are on her wrists for a reason.'

'I sure know that, but just give her a break from it all.' Guy touched his son's face. 'Be good for your mum.'

'Off you go, back to her,' Melanie called after him as he strolled through the surf, and to be with Elspeth. He chose to confide in her as they stood close and decided on what to do. He felt her brush the skin of his arm.

'Thank you for supporting me,' she now said, offering him a slow smile.

'It's easily done. I see a new woman out here on the beach, wearing her summery dress, and I'm with her now.'

She laughed softly, knowing that he was flirting with her and she did not mind that one bit. Like him, perhaps, she needed distraction from all that prevailed in their lives.

'We're both in trouble,' Elspeth grinned as Guy remained standing close to her

She would have a few moments alone with Guy, her undoubted ally in what was beginning to take over her life and that she simply did not want to concede to; the closing in of the boundaries to her world as Melanie and Ken seemed to suggest she should do. She absorbed what they said and how they behaved towards her. Guy set her free from all of that, the darling caring man that he was and who gave her spirits a lift whenever they could be together.

'What trouble, for being together and going for a swim?' he smiled and dismissed what had been said.

'No! You know what I mean!' Elspeth held up her arms; the loosest of colourful bangles sliding down and onto her still slender wrists. 'The bandages are gone! You can see the tide marks, already.'

'And they will soon be gone after some time in the sun and you put some tanning oil on your skin...'

'Guy...Guy,' she whispered on hearing the consideration for her in his voice, the soft brush of his fingers to her arm before he stepped away.

Guy stood in the surf and smiled.

'Come on. Let's go out and have a swim...do something about that?' He looked up and down the beach, and checked that they were within the safety zone marked by the flags. 'Leave your sun dress over there...on the sand, along with your sun hat and beach bag.'

'I'll...I'll just sit here and watch you. I'm fine doing that.'

She felt discomfited by his sudden and easy ways with her and a guilty conscience kicked in, if only for a moment. Guy flirted with her, unashamedly and brazenly, and it was a change from his restrained ways that she knew of back home. Melanie was already some way off and would not see how they were with each other now, less inhibited in what was said and done than when they were in the company of others.

Guy seemed to think only of her now.

'Okay, it will be just a taster for me, then I'll be with you again.'

He soon bounded off, his long sandy brown hair caught on the breeze and before he dove into the surf. Elspeth waited, for what seemed like an age before he surfaced and was seen to beckon. She delighted in the ripple of his arm muscles as he swept back his hair and strode to be with her again, his slender-waisted body nicely toned, but not obsessively so.

'Come in, Els, the water's lovely!' she just about heard him yell out. Guy stood in the surf and stumbled as waves swirled about him.

To see this vigorous young man draw near and how the water glistened on his tanned skin, well, it inflamed her senses and provoked a riot of conflicting emotions that she did not know how to control, other than to be out of his company. Her sense of propriety and correctness, her loyalty to others, vied with an undeniable urge to live it out and differently; for her to succumb to Guy's encouraging ways.

'You've persuaded me!' she cried out on a disbelieving laugh. 'I can't just sit here and watch you fooling around,' she said and shielding her eyes so that she could look up at him. Guy would have noted how she sat, her knees raised and the flouncy hem of her dress drawn up over her thighs. He would see the soft pink nail varnish on her toes that were a complement to her fingers; also the sunblock on her lips. Her choice of a strappy, mid-thigh sundress would allow her arms and legs to tan, and now that her bandages were gone her hands and wrists also. She already felt like a new woman, freed from the constraints of her condition and it was because of his persuasive and caring ways. Such intimacies she no longer truly shared with Ken and she was acutely aware of that now.

'Good, I'm glad. So, come on then? Be with me...live it out...take a chance on that.'

'I am, believe me, I am' she retorted and stated the obvious.

Elspeth stood up and unbuttoned the fastening at the neckline of her billowing beach dress and drew the hem up and over her thighs, then her body. She soon revealed her azure blue bikini, stark against the light tan of her skin and its myriad of freckles. Guy had complimented her on them often enough but the sight of them, to her, was a blemish that seemed to become more pronounced the older she got.

She was being taken out of her ordered ways of it, and now followed him into the surf; found it surprisingly warm. She laughed as Guy flopped into the water and turned to look at her. She was nowhere near as confident swimming in the sea as he was.

'I'm not going out far, so don't make me,' she told him, nervily, her steps cautious and slow.

'I'll look after you, promise,' he soon answered and drew close. He was entranced by the sight of her, how the wet fabric of her bikini clung to her body that he delighted in, and the provocative swell and shapeliness of her breasts; the soft tan lines that faded away until the beginnings of paler skin was revealed to his gaze. He was captivated on seeing the soft swell of Elspeth's belly at the rim of her bikini briefs. To have an overall tan, as Melanie sought, was to sunbathe almost nude; to discard her bikini top and wear little more than a thong. He knew that to be a step too far for Elspeth. He simply loved the look of her just as she was now. 'I'll swim beside you...'

'Yes, but not too close,' she felt obliged to caution him, and on seeing Guy's undoubted interest in her. She kept meeting a look upon her that she had not seen in Ken's eyes for so very long.

Guy showed off. He performed handstands and fell over, or he would porpoise around her as she settled down, the water up to her chin and she began to swim, meeting his look as Guy swam on his back as if to encourage her.

'I'm glad to be with you like this...to see you let go.'

'Is it that obvious?' she said, stopping and then gasping as her feet could not touch the bottom. 'Oh God, we're out of our depth!' She gave him a panic-stricken look.

'It's okay, really it is,' he soothed, soon holding out a hand that she felt compelled to take. He drew her to him as he walked towards the shore. 'Can you feel the sand now? If so wriggle your toes into it. Elspeth saw him twist and turn. 'It's a foot massage with a difference...'

She laughed on hearing his boyish pleasure in saying and doing it. His hand still held hers and she wondered what he would now do. Guy began to rise and fall in the water in a quickening rhythm that she could do nothing about but follow his lead.

'I can't do that!' He had disappeared from view and she sensed that she was expected to do the same. He surfaced so very near to her, a broad grin creasing his face.

'Well? What's keeping you?' he asked the grip on her hand tightening.

'Guy! I can't do that!'

'Yes you can, Els! Yes, you can!' he laughed in boyish excitement that captivated her, as much as she feared how she could so easily let go of any remaining restraint. He charmed her; he seduced concessions from her with these playful antics. 'Just try it and surprise yourself!'

She had time to gulp in a deep breath before he pulled her under, soon pushing up with his thighs to pull her up and free of the surface, then down again until she could stand it no more.

'Stop! Guy just stop that!' she couldn't help but gasp out in laughter. 'You're a danger!' Els now cried out, raising her hands to sweep away her sodden, glistening hair that now hung limply onto her shoulders; her bikini top all askew. 'And you're looking at me again in that way of yours. Just stop it, Guy, just stop.'

She was dismayed, not angry. Elspeth heard him sigh as she met his unflinching gaze. 'I want you to live it out while you're here, Els...and do that with me. I want that.'

'I'll try to do that...'

'No, do it while we're here.and with me.' He stood closer and she felt a touch; his hand on her back to draw her to him. 'Don't give in to their bullying...'

'Give in...give in to you and my instincts and feelings, instead?' Elspeth blurted out in some dismay. It was how Guy's touches had made her feel. They confounded all reason and her fraying resolve.

'If that's how it is, yes.'

Their situation now was unreal. She broke free of his embrace and began to walk, swim, then walk again, back towards the shore; the incoming, gentle swell helping her on; the prick of seashells to the soles of her feet of no interest. Guy's ways of it had lit a flame within her and to a place that she dared not go.

'Your body hurts...but you retain your distinct beauty and I've seen a moment's vitality again in you. There's a special sound in your laugh, again, and it's so vital and captivating.'

Everything he said was true. She knew it herself, yet she was dismayed by his touches and the feelings that Guy aroused in her that had now gone way beyond being over-familiar with what he said. How crazy to hear and feel that he was flirting with her; that she felt herself to be on the edge of simply letting go; to be taken out of only too-ordered ways.

'But...but you're taking things too far...looking and now touching me.' She spoke nervously, her mind in a whirl. She had felt him stroke her arms and now felt Guy grip her hands as they stood in the surf, the water up to their waists. 'I'm...I'm not the woman you imagine me to be.'

'I don't have to imagine it,' he murmured, suddenly so very close to her that she could feel his breath on her face as she met the questing look of his eyes upon her. 'You're beautiful, and I sense that you want to live it all out...while you still can.'

Elspeth suppressed a deep sigh. What he had told her was only too true.

'Don't, please don't, do that,' she groaned, feeling his fingertips caress her belly and then the front of her bikini top. 'Being with me is one thing...but touching me like that is something else, entirely. Please, no more...don't Guy, don't.'

Dismayed to feel the rush of pleasure his touches had aroused she was also overwhelmed by the sense of wrongdoing, the betrayal of another's trust no matter what difficulties she had in her relationships with them, be they with Len or Melanie.

She couldn't help wondering what could have provoked this sudden interest in her. Guy seemed to be paying homage to a woman that he had seen pictures of; a woman with the daughter that he had married; the woman in a pre-wedding photograph that she knew he had in his home. That woman would not have conceded to his ways, as she now felt tempted to do. So much had changed in the short time between that photograph and now.

She broke free of his claims upon her, yet she felt an uncommon ache that Ken never aroused in her as he had once done; it seemed ages ago. And now, her daughter's man was onto her; a woman past her prime, given the condition that she suffered from and that she knew would disfigure her still further; the pain sharpening her features; the condition twisting the tendons in her hands and wrists. It was a condition that would wreak a disfiguring toll on other parts of her body that the young, lustful, Guy had sought to touch, perhaps even to claim in an act of consoling, and undoubtedly tender, homage.

'I'll watch you swim and keep my distance from you...'

'For a while...Elspeth,' she heard him say before he flopped back into the sea and gestured with his hands that she should walk and keep pace with him as he swam.

'How can I ignore the effect that you have on me?' she whispered and out of his hearing.

Elspeth gathered up her dress and began to stroll towards the cabin. She watched him as Guy swam to keep pace with her slow, reflective progress, her course meandering in and out of the soft tumble of the surf and her gaze his way but her lips not giving voice to what she now thought of them sharing these few, precious, moments while they had the opportunity to do so.

'Are you sure you don't want to swim?' she heard him call out. Guy again stood waist-deep in the surf and she took in the look of the man. Hearing his teasing ways was impossible to ignore. She wanted to concede to all that these precious moments brought and share whatever they discovered.

'Oh, why not...what have I got to lose?' she said in recognition of what prevailed in her mind as the cabin, Melanie and Jonny drew ever closer. The others were too far away and would be unable to see what was playing out between them and that the company of others would soon bring to an end; moments with Guy that she would have discovered so impetuously.

She dropped her dress, and beach bag, onto the sand and ran back into the sea; tumbled into the water and made her way to him in quick, awkward, strides.

'Well...lovely Els?' He asked it softly on drawing her into his embrace.

Elspeth rose, put her arms impetuously about his neck and met an improbable kiss; behaved brazenly as she felt compelled to wrap her legs around his waist and to know of his kisses to her skin and felt the press of his lips to the swell of her breasts and their gentle, clamping touch to her nipples. She rose to make it easier for him and exulted at what these claims upon her aroused. They were a lover's touches that she had all but forgotten could bring such unbounded joy, and the prospect of so much more, from a man. She trembled on feeling this brazen, unsolicited, act of homage being paid to her body.