Night Visitor

"Hark, hark, the dogs do bark, the beggars are coming to town."

The line from the old rhyme ran though Lee's mind as her own Dalmatian set up its barking. The dog had heard some sound above the summer storm that raged outside. Lee listened, trying to detect what the animal had heard.

She was alone with her six months old baby on a five-hectare property about ten kilometres out of town. Not that she was especially fearful. Before the birth of her child, she had conducted classes in the martial arts in town, so felt herself well able to defend herself if necessary. Never the less, she was angered that Ted had left her on her own with their child so young.

Ted was one of the heroes of the motor cycle racing fraternity. He was currently away touring overseas tracks and gaining more fame and prizes, and would be away for another three months.

They had married three years before, she attracted by the glamour that seemed to surround him, and he by her beauty. The media had given their marriage a big beat up. The handsome hero of motor cycle racing, and the lovely, athletic bronzed complexioned blonde. They spoke as if Ted had won another prize, and indeed, he had.

What Lee found out fairly quickly was, that Ted was the sort of person who, having won the prize, no longer valued it. Being a hero on the track, he was also a hero off the track, being feted at parties and social gatherings, and above all, he was the idol of the women. Lee knew exactly what he was doing when he was away touring, and if she did not know this for herself, there were plenty of people who told her.

The house on the five-hectare block had been Ted's idea. It was the "in" thing to have such a block and run a few sheep and keep a horse. Once attained, he lost interest in this too, and care of the property was left to Lee. Now, with the baby, she had less time to attend to all the chores, so things were beginning to run down.

The house was the last property before the open country. Beyond the house the bush extended for hundreds of kilometres. There was only the occasional cattle station in that entire arid wilderness.

Above the sound of the storm and the rain beating on the corrugated iron roof, Lee heard knocking on the outside door. Although it was late in the evening, she supposed it was someone from town who was calling for some reason she could not fathom.

She went to the door and called out, "Who is it?"

There was no response for a moment, then a hesitant voice called back, "Please, can I sleep in your shed?"

This curious request was too tempting. Lee opened the door to be confronted with a bedraggled figure with water dripping from a less than adequate "waterproof" coat and a rucksack at his feet. Looking closer, she saw it was a boy who seemed to be about fifteen years of age. He repeated his question.

"Please madam, can I sleep in your shed?"

Having heard stories about the distressing "street kids," Lee decided she had better look further into this request.

"Come in for a minute," she invited.

The boy took off his coat and dropped it in the porch and stepped inside.

Once in the light Lee could see he was soaked to the skin, his clothes looked dirty, and he exuded an unwashed odour.

"Why do you want to sleep in the shed?" she asked.

"I got lost," was the brief reply.

"Well, what's a kid your age doing wandering about in this weather?"

He gave wry grin and said, "I know I look a kid, but actually I'm nineteen. I'm supposed to be on a walking tour, but stupidly I took a sidetrack that I thought would be a short cut to town. It ran out after a while, so I thought I could make my way to the town using my compass, but I've been wandering out there for three days."

This speech seemed to exhaust him, and Lee said, "Sit down. Well, you've almost made it. It's only about another ten kilometres to the town, but I don't think your going to make it tonight."

"I've got money," the boy said wearily, "I can pay you if you let me use the shed."

"I don't want your money," Lee snapped, "and I think we can do better than the shed. So first things first. When did you last eat?"

"Two days ago."

"I'll get some food for you, but while I'm getting it ready, I think you'd better get out of those sopping clothes and have a shower. I'll give you a big bath towel to wrap yourself in, and I'll wash some of those filthy clothes of yours."

Lee had never seen herself as a maternal figure until she had the baby. Since then, she seemed to want to mother everything. Kittens, puppies, lambs, calves and anything young, especially if they seemed helpless, were in danger of her desire to mother them. The boy was only six years younger than she was, but the protective female parent had surfaced.

The boy retrieved a razor from his rucksack and Lee led him to the shower.

"Get your clothes off and give them to me round the door," said Lee. This done, she went to his rucksack and rummaged through it, pulling out anything that looked like clothing. All were then deposited in the washing machine which she set going.

After about twenty minutes, the boy, now wrapped in the huge bath towel, returned to the living area. Lee bade him sit down on the couch and said, "My name is Lee Danvers, what's your name?"

"Jamie Campbell," the boy replied.

Lee surveyed the boy more closely than she had previously. She is a tall woman – around five feet ten inches, and she had noted the boy topped her by about one inch. He was slim and had a very sensitive looking face which, despite the fact that the shower and shave had made him a little more presentable, looked worn and haggard.

"Well, Jamie, you're not going anywhere tonight, unless you go naked. All your clothes are being washed. There's no question of your sleeping in the shed. There's a spare bed you can use."

"That's very kind of you," he said.

Lee noticed how "well spoken" he was, and very polite. She liked that.

"I've just got to finish preparing your food. It won't be long."

She left Jamie and retired to the kitchen where she was hastily putting together a cold meal for him. On returning with the food to the living room, Jamie was fast asleep. Lee cogitated for a moment as to whether she would wake him or not, and finally decided to let him sleep.

She covered the plate of food with some plastic wrapping, then fetched a blanket from a cupboard and carefully put it over Jamie, then turning off the main light, to leave only a low powered standard lamp on, she left the room. She then showered and retired to bed herself.

Around two o'clock in the morning, the baby crying wakened Lee. Her breasts were heavy with milk, so she decided that a feed was in order.

Normally she would have fed the baby in its room, but she decided to look in on Jamie. Going into the living room, she saw he was asleep. She sat down in an armchair, unfastened the front of her nightdress which was specially designed for breast feeding, and putting the nipple of a rather swollen and uncomfortable breast into the child's mouth, she sat back, and softly began to croon a cradlesong.

Lee had been producing more breast milk than the child needed, so she had frequently to express some of it. Now, as she felt her breast become more comfortable, she transferred the child to the other breast. The baby barely sucked on this before it drifted off to sleep. Lee, with the child still at her breast, also drifted into a doze.

What woke her she did not know, but looking at him, she saw Jamie, sitting up on the couch staring at her and the baby. This did not trouble Lee, as she was not one of those women who are shy about being seen to breast-feed. It was Jamie's comment that startled her.

In an awed tone he said, "I think that is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen."

I know there are people, perhaps many people, who are repelled at the sight of a woman with a child at her breast. There are even women who loathe the idea of their ever breast feeding. Personally, I go along with Jamie. A woman feeding her child at the breast gives essential nourishment, but they can and often do give more than that. They transmit love.

Quite how this is done, I am not sure. The close physical contact between mother and child? The sense of security being held close in the mother's arms? No doubt the experts can tell us – or think they can. For myself, I believe there is some spiritual force at work between mother and child.

Whatever goes on between mother and child at those times, it clearly has a life long influence on many people or why else would we find breasts so erotically attractive? Artists have tried to capture the loveliness of the breast feeding mother, some with more success than others, but to see it, as it were, in the flesh, can be one of the most sweetly erotic sights imaginable.

Jamie was clearly transfixed by Lee and her child. Lee was not sure how to respond. Ted had found the sight of her with the child at her breast repugnant, and had complained angrily, "Why the hell you have to feed the kid like that I don't know, it'll ruin your tits."

Her attempts to explain the good that this would do for their baby got nowhere. He hadn't wanted the child anyway, and although he had more than his share of other women, he still wanted his wife to display large firm "Tits" as he called them. After all, this was part of his ego needs.

After weighing up her options, Lee came out with; "You haven't seen a mother feeding her child before?"

"A bit lame," she thought, but she didn't know what else to say.

"No," he said. "My sisters have had babies, but they always go away and sort of hide when they feed them. I don't know why, when it's so stunning. I should love to sketch you like that."

Lee, looking across at Jamie who was now only covered by the towel, saw the lump that signaled an erection. Seeing this, she felt a throbbing start in her clitoris.

Ted barely bothered to have sex with her now, especially as not only the breast feeding, but the whole process of giving birth had repelled him, so now when he did bother to (as she put it) "fuck" her, it was an unhappy experience for both of them.

Consequently, Lee was very sexually frustrated. She transferred much of this sexual energy to her love of the child, but it was not enough. Now, confronted by a young man who, although barely knowing her, was aroused by her, she felt a strange softness come over her. It was not some mad passion she felt, but a warm yielding.

Jamie, perhaps trying to head off his own rising sexual need, asked, "What's the baby's name?"

"It's Alice," replied Lee.

"How old is she?"

"Six months."

"She's lovely."

Lee was confused. How could she be feeling what she was feeling for a young man she had only met a few hours before? Someone she knew nothing about? Yet, he radiated…"What is it?" Lee tried to define what it was about this boy that somehow made her want to fondle him, to care for him as if he too was a little child.

In an attempt to shake off this mood, Lee rose and said, "I'd better put the baby to bed. There's some food on that plate."

She left the room and going to the baby's room, tucked the now fast asleep Alice into her cot. Leaving the baby's room, she started to head for her own bedroom, but stopped.

There was a minor war raging inside her now. She wanted to go back to Jamie, but felt this to be ridiculous. What reason could she give to herself for such an action? What excuse could she give to Jamie?

However absurd it seemed she surrendered to the temptation and went back to the living room. Jamie was in the process of unwrapping the plate of food, and he looked up as Lee entered.

"I thought you'd gone back to bed," he said, looking at her in what can only be described as an adoring way.

Lee wanted to give. She was not clear about what she wanted to give or why. "My God," she thought, "is this boy some sort of incubus that he can make me feel like this."

Then she did the almost unthinkable, at least, unthinkable for her. She took the plate of food from his hand, sat down beside him, and drew his head to her breast. Taking hold of a breast and placing the nipple against his lips, she said, "let me feed you, darling."

Jamie hesitated for only a moment, then taking the nipple into his mouth; he began to take her milk.

Lee felt as if she had been transported to some Garden of Eden where all is innocence. "If only Ted had done this with me," she thought. Then found that the idea repelled her. It was something about Jamie, something undefined, which not only enabled her to do this with him, but also longed to do it with him. He was another child at her breast.

As she felt her milk supply diminish she said to him, "Must leave some for baby, darling."

He released her nipple, and as he came away from her Lee pulled up her nightdress to reveal her vagina.

"Now come in here, my love."

Their coupling was not the wild thrashing of two erotically charged people, but following Lee's yielding warmth it was soft and tender. Lee sensed that Jamie was giving her love – love, as she had never felt it with Ted. In return, she was able to give, as she had never been able to give before.

All her desire to give of herself she focused into the physical centre of their union. She was there, loving and being loved, yet somehow also outside herself, watching this unexplainable act between two virtual strangers.

They climaxed simultaneously calling out each other's names, striving to find the words of love that transmitted what they were feeling.

Long after they had finished, they lay locked together on the couch. Finally Lee rose and said, sleep now, my love. We can talk in the morning.

He slept, but they did not talk in the morning.

Lee was wakened by the baby's cry, and she rose to feed it. Not wanting to wake Jamie yet, she fed the child in her room. Having changed Alice, she carried her into the living room to see if Jamie was asleep. He wasn't there.

At first she thought he must have risen and was wandering around somewhere, but the truth soon became evident. He had gone. He had taken his wet clothes from the washer and must have put them on still damp. The towel was folded neatly on the couch and the empty plate that had contained his food was washed up and put away. There was no note, no message of any kind.

Lee felt her head swimming and thought she would faint. She had somehow invested a huge amount of herself in that brief encounter Jamie. It was more than the physical things that had happened. It was her essential self, perhaps one could say "soul," that she had poured into their union, and now he had gone and taken that with him.

For days and weeks, she waited for a letter, a telephone call or message of any sort. There was nothing. She started to feel constantly unwell, and then she became aware that she was pregnant.

The child could not possibly be Ted's, so it had to be Jamie who had impregnated her. Short of a secret abortion that she would not have, Ted would have to know.

When it was revealed to him he shouted and raved, calling her a whore and slut, and giving no thought to his own sexual behaviour or his neglect of Lee.

After he had calmed down, which took several days, he told her the marriage was over. "You can have the damned property, and I'll give you a lump sum to live on, and that's the lot." She saw him only once again after that, and that was when they finalised the divorce.

So Lee went on living alone with only Alice for company, wondering whether to sell up and move.

The new baby, another girl whom she called "Jemima," arrived and was brought home. Lee now found it very difficult to maintain the property, and had finally resolved to sell, when things took a new turn.

A flat crate arrived unexpectedly. On opening it, Lee saw what was obviously a picture wrapped with great care against damage. Taking off the protective layers there was finally revealed an exquisite painting of a beautiful woman breast feeding a child.

Lee was bewildered. There was no letter or identification of any kind that she could see. Why would anyone send her such a wonderful picture?

The Scottish Bard implied that we do not see ourselves as others see us. This was so true of Lee that it was not until a friend called and saw the picture and said, "That's lovely picture of you," that she realised that it was indeed her and Alice.

Lee now hunted all over the painting and finally, with the aid of a magnifying glass, found hidden in some decoration, the letters J.C.

"Jamie Campbell."

Lee wept. She could see all too clearly the love and tenderness that had gone into the painting.

"Oh God, if he had that much love for me, why did he leave? Why did he go without a word?" She thought her heart would break.

The arrival of the painting changed Lee's resolve to move. She felt she could not move from the place where she had given and received such overwhelming love, and so, another year passed.

Working one day, trying to mend a broken section of the fence, Lee heard a car stop outside the house. She started to walk up the block, and then seeing a man crouched down talking to Alice, she quickened her pace. It was at the time when the media were emphasising the prevalence of child molesters, and this was her fear.

The man heard her approach and looked up.

Lee froze in her tracks.

"Oh my God, Jamie!"

He stepped forward to touch her, but she pulled away. She had often pictured how she would behave if Jamie ever returned, but this was not one of those pictures. Always she had done something like run into his arms, but on seeing him in reality, all the pain she had felt, all the weeping she had done, welled up to choke her. In that moment, she almost hated him.

Struggling to speak, she finally got out, "Why have you come here?"

"To see you," was his simple reply.

"What for? What do you want?"

"I want to talk to you, that's all."

"You'd better come in."

Lee went ahead of him and arriving on the veranda Jamie saw Jemima's pram. He looked in and saw the child. He stood silent for some minutes with Lee watching him.

"You've had another baby!"

"Yes."

"A boy or a girl?"

"A girl."

"What's her name?"

"Jemima."

"She's ours, isn't she?"

"Yes." Before she could stop herself Lee went on, "At least you left me something to love."

They stood staring at each other, not knowing how to go on, then Lee broke in, "Well, you'd better come in and say what you've come to say." She turned and entered the house with Jamie following.

Commanding him rather than inviting him to sit down, Lee indicated an armchair rather than the couch.

"Well?"

"I've come to tell you why I left without a word."

"Why? Why now?"

"Because I'm now able to say what I wanted to say to you back then."

"Get it out then. I've got a fence to repair."

"After you went to bed that night, I slept for a while, but I woke up very early. You had left the light on and I was looking round the room, and I saw the photograph."

"What photograph?"

"The one of Ted Danvers standing on a platform holding a silver cup. I knew who he was, and anyway, his signature was written right across the picture. Then I realised who you are. I recalled seeing the pictures of your wedding in the newspapers. Your Ted Danver's wife.

"Was."

"Oh?"

"What you saw in the pram didn't best please him. When I told him I was going to have a baby, he knew it couldn't be his."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Now will you get on and say what you've got to say?"

"What had happened between us – between two strangers – your kindness to me, and I wanting to say things to you that I hardly knew how to find the words for…"

"You seem to be finding plenty of words now. Can't you come to the point?"