Mrs. Grace & I

My name is Richard Price, usually known as Ric. I think I must have been about four or five when I first became aware of Mrs.Grace. She lived alone three houses along the street from our house. My parents were quite friendly with her, and were the only people in our street who called her by her given name, Catherine. It was never Cath, Cat or Cathy, but always Catherine.

Mrs.Grace is a beautiful lady, but not in the popular advertising way, or like on TV and films. She is tall for a woman; I think about five feet ten inches, with long black hair, and with what people call, “Slightly hawkish looks.” She has almost black eyes and a slightly curved nose. Her mouth, which is not overly wide, has full red lips – the red is natural not lipstick – and they turn up at the corners and this seems to soften her otherwise austere face.

Her neck is a particularly attractive feature, being long and slender, like a slim marble column. Her shoulders over which her hair tumbles when it is free – it is mostly tied back – are wide but softly rounded, and her arms when bare, display the same round smoothness.

Her breasts push out the shirts she mostly wears, and as she seems rarely to wear bras, they move as if with a life of their own, their nipples seen through the cloth.

Her hips swell out to match her breasts, and although she has no children, she gives the impression that if ever a woman was built for baby making, it is she.

Her legs are long and slender without being thin, with strong calf and thigh muscles. She walks and sits very upright, always looking dignified.

Overall, one could say she is a “well-made woman.”

In addition to her physical attractions, Mrs.Grace speaks with a beautifully modulated contralto voice that one can listen to for hours without tiring of it.

One other feature that has always fascinated me is her smell. Unlike most women she does not douse herself with perfume or deodorant, but always smells very clean and hygienic

She is very fond of gardening and when seen in her front garden during the week, she is almost invariably clad in a shirt, corduroy trousers, soft flat-heeled shoes and gardening gloves. Sometime she wears one of those sleeveless jackets dear to fishermen and hunters, with masses of pockets. In colder weather, she changes this jacket for a padded coat. In very warm weather the corduroy pants are replaced by very tight shorts that display her legs beautifully, and shows her plump mons and high, tight buttocks.

On Sundays, she goes to church in the morning and the weekday clothes are replaced by a simple linen dress in the summer, usually dark red or green that seems to emphasis her black hair. In winter, she adds a long woolen coat, also either red or green, but occasionally she wears a black one.

I think it would be true to say that Mrs.Grace must be infuriating to most women, as she is the sort of person who could dress in an old sack and make it look elegant.

My parents are the only people in the street who are on reasonably intimate terms with Mrs.Grace. As I have said, they call her by her given name. The rest of the people seem to be a bit in awe of her, or even a little scared. I suppose this is because of her somewhat pensive manner.

Another thing I learned about her was that she was what adults called a “widow.” I had no idea what this meant, except that it seemed to make her a bit different from other people. Like most of the things I have related above, I did not gather them all at once aged four or five, but observed or heard about them over the years.

The tragic story of the death of her husband I heard from Mrs.Grace herself when I was fifteen. I think I was and am the only person in the street who knows the story. In brief, she told me how they had been married less than a year when he was killed riding his motorbike to work one morning.

I first got to know her when, escaping from the confines of our garden through the front gate being left accidentally open, I ventured down the street and reaching Mrs.Grace’s house I was attracted by her garden. Looking through the wooden bars of her garden gate, I saw, not an orderly, highly drilled garden, but a wild sort of place.

I do not mean that her garden was a mess or littered with garbage, but it was laid out to give the impression that it was as nature intended, and not a human construct. When my mother read Kenneth Grahame’s “Wind in the Willows,” to me, the description of “The Wild Wood” was for me Mrs.Grace’s garden.

As I looked at her garden, I became aware of the tall figure of Mrs.Grace looking down at me from the other side of the gate. I stared up at her towering above me like all adults seem to when you are little. The black hair and dark eyes were scary, but she smiled and said, “You’re Richard, aren’t you?”

I think I said something like, “Yeth.”

“Does your mother know you are out in the street?” she asked.

As best as I can recall, I made no reply.

“Come along Richard,” she said, “we’d better take you back to mummy.”

She took my hand in hers and it felt safe and strong. We walked back to my house and I was taken up to the front door. When my mother answered Mrs.Grace’s ring on the bell, I was admonished, “You naughty boy. How did you get out?” You know, all that parental stuff!

Mrs.Grace departed followed by my mother’s thanks for bringing me home.

From then on, having once escaped from my place of confine, I took every opportunity to go out into the wide world and look through the gate at the Wild Wood.

Mrs.Grace took me home several times until my parents got used to the idea of my moving beyond our garden. They must have told Mrs.Grace, because the next time she saw me peering through her gate she asked, “Would you like to come in and see my garden?”

I believe I made my usual monosyllabic response, “Yeth.”

Unlike most adults, she did not treat me as if I was a young tourist to be conducted round the garden. She said, “I’ll be working over here, you look around.” She seemed to understand what a little boy needed; the freedom to roam, letting the imagination soar as I crawled under bushes, hid round trees, swung from branches and adventured along magical pathways. And what a wonder to come upon the pond that was made to look like an authentic stream of flowing water. It even had real fish in it!

In the following years I made many visits to the garden and I was Mole exploring the Wild Wood. There were stoats and weasels and Badger, Rat and Toad. Above all, there was the river (pond), on which Rat and I rowed our boat.

Looking at the garden now, it seems quite small, but then, long ago, it was a vast wonderland for exploration.

Mrs.Grace became my friend, and whilst never interfering with my escapades, she was always ready to answer any of my questions about plants and trees, and wash my grazes and cuts.

She added another dimension to my world of boyish fantasy when she read “Treasure Island” to me. The pond became the sea surrounding the island that swarmed with pirates whom I defeated in battle repeatedly.

Then there was the first time I entered her house. After playing in her garden one day, she asked me in for a glass of lemonade. The house was almost as fascinating as the garden. There was old carved furniture, pictures on the walls that looked very mysterious. There were books everywhere, mostly, as I found out later, history books.

An unfamiliar fragrance pervaded the house. The source of this I found to be the kitchen that had herbs suspended from the ceiling. The house had dim corners that I knew must harbour ghosts, and this enabled me to enjoy those thrills of fear that children often delight in.

When I started to walk to school unaccompanied, Mrs.Grace always seemed to be near her gate to bid me “Good morning Richard.” Every birthday and Christmas, there were presents from her, and my parents used to admonish her, “You spoil him.”

I came to love her almost as much as I loved my parents, and looking back now to those days, I can see what was happening. I was the child she had never had with her husband. I helped to fill the gap of her loss. This can be an unhealthy relationship, but she never imposed herself on me. She never sought to hug or kiss me as many adults do with little children. It was I who initiated such additions to our relationship.

I can remember the first time I kissed her on her cheek. I was thanking her for an unexpected unbirthday and unChristmas gift. I was seven at the time, and the gift was a watch, my first ever. It had belonged to her husband and years after I learned that the occasion of the gift was the anniversary of his death.

I am not sure why she gave it to me, but I think it was symbolic. After years of grieving for him, she was finally letting him go. Even today, she still loves his memory, but it is without pain.

My little kiss, inspired by the excitement of getting a watch, evoked from her the response, “Thank you, darling, that was lovely.”

It was two more firsts – the first time anyone had thanked me for a kiss, and the first time she had called me “Darling.”

I still wear the watch.

The years of my “Wind in the Willows” and pirate fantasies passed and I entered that phase in life we call “Puberty.”

It is a difficult time in that we begin to grow physically at a fast rate, and our sexual development frustrates and bewilders us. We approach the peak of our sexual powers at a time when we are legally denied their fulfillment.

Of course, we know what goes on between young people in hidden places and the backs of cars, but denial seems to be the order of the day. Relationships between older women and young men especially, are now receiving statistical corroboration, but still we close our eyes, or, if exposed, the lovers are taken to court.

I went through the struggle to deal with my sexual drives by masturbating. My peers were busy fucking when opportunity presented itself and while I had a few connections with girls in my high school, they never seemed satisfactory.

Another feature of that time in our lives is the struggle to disconnect from our childhood relationships with adults and the taking on of a new relationship. This is hard for both the adults, especially parents, and the young person. The old relationships die hard.

My parents, being wise people, handled this time in my life well, as it is said; they gradually “let me go.”

In my between childhood and adult state of confusion I did what many teenagers do, and withdrew from contact with adults, trying to establish a life that would go on for ever as a rebellious youth. I avoided adults as much as possible, with one exception, Mrs.Grace.

I shall now cease to write of her as Mrs.Grace because on my fifteenth birthday she said; “I think its time you called me Catherine.”

This was an surprising honour since my parents were still the only people in the street who called her by that name. To be allowed at fifteen to use that intimate name was to change something in our relationship.

In fact, something had begun to change before the matter of her name.

Because of the confusion I was passing through, it is hard to express the exact nature of the change. When I was with my male peers and an attractive older woman came along, there would be comments like, “I’d like to fuck that,” or “I’d like to get onto that and fuck it.”

Undoubtedly I began to develop sexual feelings for Catherine, but they did not seem to be of the same order as those expressed above. Had Catherine walked past a group of us, I would not have dreamt of saying, “I’d like to fuck that.” Had any other member of the group given forth with such an expression about her there would probably have been a fight. No one would speak of my mother goddess in that way and get away with it. Catherine was not a “That” or an “It.” She was “The Woman.”

I can now see that Catherine handled my teenage moodiness with skill and love. If I answered her greeting in a surly manner, she would simply ask, “Everything all right, Richard?” Often, if there was something on my mind, it was Catherine I would tell, and her advice was that which I was most likely to follow.

A significant contribution Catherine made to my life at this time was concerned with my future. I have already commented on the history books that abounded in her house. I learned that she was a history graduate from university, and she had continued her interest in the subject and wrote historical articles for a number of magazines.

About age ten I began to browse through her books, and that, together with the stories from history that she told me, led eventually to my decision that I wanted to be an historian. Whilst not minimising the difficulties that lay ahead, Catherine encouraged me in this ambition.

The upshot of this decision was that when time came for me to go to university, I decided on a history honours major.

This led to my spending more and more time at Catherine’s house as she had many of the literary resources I needed and discussing history matters with her was like having an extra and pleasant tutorial.

The love I had for Catherine from childhood had now grown into feelings of adult love for her. I make no pretence; my love had a powerful sexual content. Until entering puberty, I had not taken much interest in her appearance. Once that tangled time arrived I became ever more aware of her beauty.

She is about twenty-two years older than I am, but the years had been more than kind to her. If anything, they have enhanced her looks by softening them. Perhaps this was because once she ceased to mourn her dead husband, the austerity she had affected began to diminish.

As far as I could tell, there had been no other man in her life. As I became aware of the male-female aspects of life, I was puzzled by this lack. “Surely, I thought, men must find her very desirable,” and with that thought, feelings of anger and jealousy would arise in me.

Catherine must have been aware of what I was feeling, and the changes taking place in our friendship. There were many times when we were supposed to be discussing some historic point, and I would get lost in lustful desire for her. My attempts to hide erections were, I am sure, not always successful. She must have noticed, yet never by word of gesture did she ever hint at knowing of my desire for her, or make any sexual advance from her side.

I had come to understand over the years of our acquaintanceship that advances or changes in our relationship were mostly left to my initiative. The only one she made that I can recall is the change from calling her Mrs.Grace to Catherine. So as I approached my twentieth year I found that I not only loved Catherine in the companionable sense, I was also in love with her in the sexual, man to woman sense.

I had no idea how to deal with these feelings. During my teen years, I had engaged in the usual sexual activities with girls, and had often to masturbate to relieve myself of Catherine inspired arousal, but none of this seemed to assuage my appetite for her. To my mind she was the “Real Thing,” all else a substitute for her.

I told myself that the age gap was too wide for us to bridge. Catherine would think me ridiculous for harbouring such thoughts about her. My peers would laugh and my parents berate me.

A slight change in my thoughts and attitude came about when I, together with two of my male friends, met up with Catherine as she was shopping in the high street. I had never spoken to any of my friends about Catherine, much less introduced her to them. Now introductions were unavoidable. I simply said, “This is my neighbour, Mrs.Grace,” and then told her my friend’s names.

There was a brief and courteous exchange and then Catherine went on to do her shopping.

When she was out of earshot one of my friends burst out, “My God, she’s a stunner.” The other picked up the theme saying, “I could take Mr.Grace’s place in her bed any time.” I said nothing about Catherine being a widow. The first speaker now turned on me, “Have you ever tried to…you know…have it off with her?”

I was boiling with anger inside at what I saw as a slur on my angelic Catherine, but I controlled myself and simply said, “I’m sure she’s not that sort of lady,” and the matter was dropped.

This incident seemed to pull me out of a rut where my love for Catherine was concerned. My two friends had been instantly drawn to her. I am sure that if opportunity had presented itself, they would have bedded her without a thought about age differences, in fact, they would probably have been delighted to have an older woman. Just how passing their desire for Catherine might have been I did not know, but my own desire was I believe much wider than theirs.

Yes, I wanted to bed Catherine, but was that all? Admitting to myself the truth of my longing, it was certainly much more than the occasional bedding of Catherine I needed. I went so far as to admit that it was marriage I wanted.

Of course, all this contemplation of a future with Catherine took place without any idea that she would slot neatly into my designs. In any case, I doubted whether I would have the courage to approach her.

I also considered another extreme possibility: I would break off my connection with her; Not go to her house or use her books; No longer engage in conversations with her. At the end of these reflections, I felt physically sick. The thought of breaking with my beloved was horrifying. Come what may, I had to press on, even if I did not know where I was going.

It seems to be a rule of human nature that there comes a time in stressful situations when something has to give. It is as if a demon arises in the psyche that sweeps aside all the arguments, doubts and anxieties and says, “Step aside, I’m taking over here.” This “demon” seems to be part of us, yet somehow independent of us. In the actual critical situation, it is as if we are observers of its action rather than participants.

Still unresolved about what to say to Catherine, if anything at all, I had reason to go to her house to look up a passage in a book I knew she had. Catherine was as usual welcoming, exchanging with me a chaste kiss that had become our custom on my arrivals and departures.

There was something different about her on this occasion. She was dressed as I had never seen her before. My throat went dry and my legs actually felt as if they would not support me. What the garment was intended to be I did not know, perhaps a nightdress, a negligee or some reckless casual wear?

It was black and covered very little, and what it did cover it revealed more of than it hid. It was see-through in the extreme. Not only had I never seen Catherine, I had never seen anyone in such a garment.

She was naked almost to the nipples, and these and the rest of her breasts could be clearly seen. At the other end, she was visible to the tops of her thighs, her sex organ being only just covered, and again, the pubic hair was plainly visible.

We were standing just inside her front door our bodies almost touching after our kiss. The next stage in my bewilderment was when Catherine said very softly in her contralto voice, “I thought you might come this evening.” Touching the cloth of her garment, she went on, “I got this just for you.”

I felt dizzy, and I heard a voice that did not seem to belong to me say, “O God, I want you so badly, Catherine.” The “demon” had taken over.

I heard Catherine’s voice: “I know darling. Come to bed and love me.”

It is not my intention to give any explicit details of that night with Catherine. What happened has always been somehow sacred to me. It was an act of love in all its purity in which we bonded with each other, fulfilling what we had both long known; we belonged together. It was also a promise of things to come.