More Than Just Being Neighbourly

Marion put down her iPhone and sat back in her reading chair. It was placed by one of the windows of her living room so that she not only got the best of the daylight to read by, but it also gave her a view of the lane that passed her house and also of the cottages that lined it. They were an assortment of styles that somehow still managed to create a pleasant streetscape, their owner's house proud and in summer there was always a blaze of colour to be seen when the hanging baskets were planted and gradually filled out to provide cascades of many colourful blooms.

She was not frail and losing her mind, even if she did live alone now, but as a precaution, she had asked her doctor to get her registered in a neighbourhood watch scheme so that there was someone nearby that she could call upon to help her in case of an emergency. She still had the occasional 'turn', the legacy of a mild stroke some eighteen months ago.

Tom Rycroft had been a surprise addition to the list of three, but the young man with his still boyish good looks turned out to be the most attentive one, never complaining when he was called because she had one of her 'woozy' spells.

Today had been such a day and she had called the helpline, using the buzzer that she wore around her neck on a gold chain. Tom, working from home as he did, was the first to respond.

"I'm sorry to call you out," she said looking apologetically at him but pleased that he had been the first to respond.

"It's okay. Let's get you settled and you can tell me what happened. I'll pass it on to the service for you."

"I haven't touched a drop!" she had smiled, the last time a few weeks ago, and when he called by, using a back door key that he knew lay under one of the flowerpots by the pathway leading up to the house.

"I always prefer it when you come over here to help me," she told him with a noticeable hardening in her tone. "My son Frank is always in a rush to get things done and then goes away again. You always stay and have a chat, even when I know you have your work to do and your business to run. I like that in you."

"Well, today's another time when I can do that. I'm alone at home as you know." He gazed at her and saw Marion's hand shaking as she put away her reading glasses. He took her to be about fifty-five, maybe sixty, but she had an attractiveness that belonged to a younger woman. She hadn't deserved to be afflicted in the way that she sometimes was.

"I can manage," she answered somewhat testily on seeing that look of concern upon her. "I just get these turns and then I'm okay again."

"Not as often as before, I hear. I've asked about you, Marion."

"You care," she stated simply, but there was feeling behind what she said.

"Yes," he answered with a shrug of his shoulders, as if being involved with her situation was not to be spoken of. But, the woman before him, so well-dressed, slender faced and trim, her hair an ash-blonde which he could only assume had been tinted, otherwise it would be a luxurious silken grey, possessed a lively personality and they could talk of many things. "I'll go make us some tea, shall I?"

She fumbled for her watch, the bracelet slipping around her bony wrist, and saw the time.

"It's nearly six. I'll have a gin and tonic and hope you'll have one with me. It will be a nice change not to drink on my own." She gazed up at him. "You said when you came in that you had something to ask me?"

"I have, and the drink may be the time to do that. I won't be long, promise."

"It's going to be a shock to me is it?" she smiled with a twinkle in her eye. She approved of his taste in clothes. Tom was still in his dark blue work suit and his white shirt was open at the neck. She would often see him wearing a tie, something that you saw too little of these days.

"Perhaps it will be but wait a few moments and I'll tell you."

"There's ice in the fridge!" she called after him. "I hate G and T's without it!"

"I'm with you in that!" she heard Tom laugh in reply and heard the ice cubes rattle in the glasses he must have found. The gin bottle was on a shelf in the kitchen. "I'm not making it too strong and wonder if I should be encouraging you to have a drink...with me."

"Don't fuss so," she called back, happily, amazed at how easy it was to talk to him. It was as if there were so few years between them.

"Here you are, one G and T with ice. I even found the remains of a lemon in the fridge." Tom tapped his glass against hers. "To your speedy recovery..."

Marion sipped on her drink and met his look upon her. "I'm beginning to feel better already, thanks to you."

"Good, now here's what I was going to ask you. The village fête is coming up and I wondered if you would like to go there with me, or I can at least drive you there, up to the village playing fields, unless...unless your friends have already asked you?"

"They haven't! I would also like to be escorted by you and turn a few heads while I'm about it. I may have my shaky moments but I'm not done with life yet!"

Tom was visibly taken aback by the vehemence in her voice and what she had said. He was also surprised to hear that Marion seemed to be thinking of his invitation as asking her out on a date. He looked at her now through different eyes. She was undoubtedly attractive, still, with her silken hair brushed out, a neat pair of white slacks clothing her slender legs, a blouse that shaped her, and a beaded necklace knotted at the gentle curve of her pert breasts. He could only marvel at Marion's powers of recovery; her woozy moment was already dismissed.

"Well, we'll make an evening of it... a late afternoon and evening of it," he smiled and took a few sips of his drink. His hand, he felt, was shaking as she thought of her. Marion retained a tended attractiveness and her bubbly personality still shone through despite what had happened.

"I should have a few more turns," she smiled, " and get looked after properly."

"And now you're teasing me, Marion. I'd better go, if only for my own safety."

She feels that she could drown in that look of his upon her. It has been so long, four years, since Andy was by her side, his sudden loss striking her hard. Her friends, in the village, that she had made over the years, had seen her through, but they filled only a few hours of her day, and they did not help her with the emptiness that she felt in her life, both where it touched her emotional well-being but also heightening the absence of a touch or a kiss, a restorative hug and then...and then the sharing of a loving act and becoming lost in the physical mayhem such times had once aroused in her.

"I'm okay now," she told him as Tom drained his glass and stood up. "You'll telephone me, won't you, and say when I have to be ready. The way the weather looks now, and is forecast, the fête will have sunshine...laughter...and fun for everyone."

"I'm counting on it."

"And I'm glad you asked me, Tom."

It takes all of her willpower and restraint to not let Tom know what she is feeling, or, truthfully, what the sight of him having such fun with her has aroused. She's already told him that she's not used to the dancing and the beat of the music, both of them making her somewhat giddy with pleasure after such a long time.

He's respecting the boundaries she imagines Tom has put up so that she does not feel that he's being too forward; that his hold on her, whenever the tempo of the music demands it of them, is not too suggestive or intense.

"It's been a while since I did any of this!" he laughs and unashamedly sweeps her up into his arms and they dance swirling and jigging steps over the makeshift dance floor that the fête's organisers have had the foresight to lay down in the largest marquee. Along with so many others, they have also joined in the country dancing, twirled, and skipped with other partners, and she has to stop and miss some just to catch her breath.

"You never said I'd have to go through with it all!" she laughed at one point in the evening. "Go and dance with others you know here... I've seen you chatting to them."

Other women in the village, whom they both know, were asked to dance, given that their men were more interested in sampling the variety of beers on offer at the makeshift bar, and control of their limbs seemed to become harder to achieve.

"I'll be back unless someone else asks you to dance!"

Tom seems to be in quite a different mood from how she usually sees him when he helps her out, undertaking routine chores around the house, or in the garden, and when she does not feel up to it. A minor stroke set her back a year or so ago and as someone who offered to be on call, when necessary, Tom has been faultless and uncomplaining.

Now, as the music fades away she has time to get her breath back and wonders what he is thinking when he sees her enjoying herself, those she knows in the village and who are here for an evening's entertainment somewhat bemused, not only to see that she is present but also having so much fun.

"No one else asked me if I would like to be here, but Tom did, and I soon said 'yes!" was her answer to one friend's question, and expression of surprise to see her in the company of a younger man, good-looking as Tom undoubtedly is, and smartly dressed too, even for an evening such as this. 'Smart casual' is the phrase many might use, but she thinks of it as simply taking pride in your appearance.

After all that they had each been through, she wondered if it would be so wrong to share comfort with a younger man, and he with a woman many years older than the wife who had divorced him. They would not be betraying anyone, she a widow and he a single man again and living in his cottage, across the lane from her, and where he ran his consultancy business. He was doing well, she assumed, for Tom was often away and without him knowing it she kept an eye on the place, even pushed letters through the slot set in the heavy oak front door, and that the postie could not be bothered to push all the way in.

She did this on her morning walk, or when she was on her way to the village shops, or whenever she might go to see a friend and have coffee and chatter.

Of her developing emotional bond with Tom, she said nothing to her friends, and certainly not to Tom. Whatever spark there was between them could burst into flame in its own time, she chose to think and would now wait.

Tom can only marvel at the change in her, how companionable she is, and unbothered by how it looks to others seeing them together, dancing, chatting, strolling around the stalls, and trying some of the games. Marion even won a large teddy bear at the coconut shy, but she declined to take it.

Her lightly made-up face is flushed from the dancing and she's tied back her hair in a grip to stop it from swaying. He's done enough to ensure that Marion's had a good time and that, despite her protestations when he says they should ease up, he does not want to tire her.

He's paid for two more tumblers of Pimm's and weaves his way back to their table where he sees her chatting to a couple who live a few doors down from him. He knows them more by sight than by talking to them, unlike Marion.

It feels all wrong, what he's beginning to make of her, and that the evening together, so far, has exceeded all expectations. She looks so well dressed in a ragingly casual way, her slacks accompanied by a floaty white blouse with ruffles on the button line and on the cropped sleeves that finish on her slender forearms. Her white pumps lend grace to her slender legs and feet, and he's been left in no doubt what a companionable woman she is and would have been to her late husband.

Now he's thinking of her as a sexy woman, older, but graceful; perhaps a blonde bombshell in the years long before he moved in across the lane from her. So, she has some wrinkles but her bright smile makes you forget that, and her tended, almost sylph-like figure, her tanned skin, the hint of her freckled cleavage that her blouse's neckline allows him to see, and anyone else taken to looking at her, enslave him. He's thinking of her in quite different ways from before and feels a sense of guilt grip him as he draws near and she looks up, smiling.

The couple she has been seen talking to move away.

"They were surprised to see me here," she explains.

"And I'm surprised no one else has asked you to dance, Marion. You look wonderful, if I may say so?"

"You may, but I'm nearing the end of my time here at the fête...sorry."

"Don't be. We've made a night of it and I've enjoyed your company."

Even as he says it and watches her sip at the Pimm's cup he has bought for her, he's possessed by guilt and represses the thought of how she would look, to be naked and preparing for bed. Marion had curves in her tended figure and her skin looked so smooth, and her scent, that he could breathe in as he drove her to the fête, and when they danced close, ignited wanton feelings of longing for her. They were feelings of being companionable to a woman, a neighbour living alone with her memories, and having seen him taking a sexual interest in her. His loneliness and his emotional circumstances have brought him to this, it seems, but it is not the only reason.

He finds Marion desirable and attractive, womanly and companionable; all that he misses and has done since his divorce. His married life may not have been perfect, but there is a void that needs to be filled and in that emotion, he has a bond with Marion as strong as any other.

So, he has wayward hopes and feelings and wonders if she has them too.

Marion meets his look upon her as Tom leans on his knees and talks, of how the evening has passed so quickly. He sits facing her, their knees almost touching so that they can talk above the din of the music that continues to play.

"I hope it's not been too much for you, too soon?" he asks her.

"I haven't wanted it to be any other way, but it's time you took me home, Tom."

She says it wondering if he feels as she does, that he is possessed by conflicting emotions of restraint and longing for the person they are with. To anyone looking at them, it's an unlikely match but who is to say that it's wrong if two people are attracted, and attached, as they seem to have been throughout the evening? She's not some old biddy with her toy boy lover.

Chance would be a wonderful thing, were it to happen.

She needs to be taken out of herself, having slept hardly at all the night before, yet wondering what she was getting into with a young man and who, if she didn't know better and she was unsure of that, was becoming besotted with her. Wisdom may come with age, some say, but she's unsure of that given how she's feeling about him and wants to share.

She should get a hold of her emotions, but Tom seems to rule over them, unknowingly. It's bothersome and it's something new. Usually, she can see the way ahead in her life, just as she imagines, and believes, even after what Tom has been through, he can.

After the evening of fun that she's had, she senses that there is no way back for her, for them. She wants him, to know of the young man's body and to learn of it, every dip and hollow, every limb, and to meet his kisses and caresses; for each of them to take slow but deliberate pleasure in what can be seen and touched.

She feels so tense as they drive slowly home, and she knows that she can not keep away from him. She wants to love and to be loved again, just as he must yearn for that too. She longs to be touched and to touch, just as she felt it when they danced, in a loosened embrace and knowing that some eyes were on them.

She feels this now, stronger than ever, more intense than when she sometimes saw Tom walking by and he would wave, unsure if she was in her living room and seeing him pass by. She would feel a tightening in her throat and would struggle for breath, all it crazy to comprehend when they had not shown any overt interest in each other, just gave small signs or through helping and talking, bonding ever closer.

What could it be that she felt? Love...a game to be played...hot love in prospect?

Images of them together keep flashing through her mind but she does not dare to take the first step in fully claiming his attention upon her. Tom did set the boundaries to their relationship by not making a pass at her, which is a shame because she wants to break free of restrained ways and without any compromises. She wants to be loved and not to think beyond that moment, or many of them. Besides, if two people clicked why should it end between them because of their ages or what others would think, or say?

She wants to know more about him; she wants to kiss him; she wants to feel his skin against hers and feel the warmth that such a union brings. It has been four long years since she has felt this way, and to submit to another's caresses is not to be disloyal. She loves the memory of her lost husband, but she wants to live on and differently.

Seeing Tom and being with him, as she has been through the evening, has broken through her defences. Why can't he see that?

"Want to come in for a coffee?" he asks her as the lights of his car pick out the gates to the short driveway of his home.

She had closed her eyes and imagined his lips on her skin, to her throat, and his light touch on her hard nipples, aroused by thoughts of them together as never before.

"I'll make it for you, but be at my place, if that's okay?" She doesn't want to walk back to her house over the darkened lane, the light from an isolated lamp standard, moulded and of cast iron from years back, insufficient to reassure her.

Tom is soon with her and she feels his touch to her hand as the small coffee cup is taken from her hand. Again, she feels she wants to let go, to become lost with him and rather than look away she now meets his stare upon her. The jacket and silk scarf she wore as a finishing touch to her dressing up for the evening have gone. She's in her slacks and blouse and she sees his gaze drift over her.

Slowly, they draw close to each other, cups in hand as another reaches out spontaneously to touch and to hold.

"I'm not going anywhere," he says, his voice low, as Tom takes the coffee cup from her trembling hand.

"And I don't want you to," she answers before he kisses her, something that she has wanted him to do for what seems like months.

She feels a rush of longing for him as her hands offer caresses to his body, under his thin summer jacket, then to his back before she brazenly grips his buttocks and pulls Tom against her. Finally, she feels that he wants her as much as she desires to be taken to bed and by him.

"Do you want this and with me as much as I want it and with you?" he kisses, his lips pressed to her mouth, but Tom's eyes open and questioning.

She clings to him.

"Yes...yes I do!" she gasps and kisses him fiercely as his hands finally trail upwards, between their bodies and he claims her breasts, her clamp on his buttocks accompanied by the forward thrust of her hips. She senses that he may be on new ground, that his experience is not as wide, or deep, as hers. After all, she had been married for many years; had loved throughout them, and had even borne two sons as a result of her loving ways.

Tom follows through on what she had hoped would happen between them. His hands find their way under her blouse and he slowly offers caresses to her breasts, held so limply in a thin bra, his lips pressing kisses to her throat before...before he stops.

Why do that?

She wonders what is wrong and attempts to encourage his caresses upon her once more. His touches, and her vivid imagination, have brought her on and she feels a clammy warmth in her pussy, the gnaw of longing not felt for some time but only too familiar and welcome.