Not Just Like Old Times

NOT JUST LIKE OLD TIMES

1

Edith thought that she really did have to get a hold of herself. If he failed to do that, and after seeing Milo again, then her secret might well become known or become obvious to the others and her husband, Adam, in particular.

The guests to a summer party, in her riverside home, were happily and noisily gathered downstairs for a commonplace event that she and Adam always hosted and for what might, yet, become a defining moment in their lives together. Milo's admiring glance, as he was greeted, was just as she remembered it. How he was dressed, however, in a navy-blue lightweight summer suit and a white open-necked shirt contrasted sharply with the young man she had last seen. Chunky and stylish white trainers, with thick soles, made him look rebelliously chic.

"You made it," she had whispered on greeting him.

"Yes, I couldn't have stayed away. You look wonderful, again." His admiring glances upon her were remembered only too well from that morning when she had met him at her yoga class.

She had excused herself to run upstairs, her reason to do so to fix her hair differently; that it was too warm and breezy to have it wafting about her face. The real reason was that she needed time to control her raging emotions about what she was getting into with him.

The hairbrush trembled in her slender-fingered hand as she brushed out her silken black hair. She stifled a curse as with one hand the brush was put down on the dressing table and the other held her hair. She then braided it, deftly, at the base of her neck, a jewelled clasp soon holding it in place.

She had purposefully taken care of her appearance, choosing to wear a new summer dress, the ruched white cotton decorated with random bunches of petite red flowers set among leafy fronds. The skirt was floaty and swirly, flattered her slender figure and the bodice left one shoulder exposed and knotted at the other. A beaded lariat necklace hung down onto the swell of her breasts, their rounded firmness shaped by the fabric, but not overly so, and on one wrist she had tied bangled leather-strap bracelets, the gemstones matching those of her earrings. They were delicate silver strands with a heart-shaped burnt-orange gemstone centrepiece, the colour of the flowers to be seen on her dress, the gemstones matched by her nail varnish.

It had all been bought and chosen for this day and she had done so not only to lift her spirits but also to suggest to Milo that she had dressed for him; that he would see another woman and contrast her with the one that he had met a week or so ago. It had been a meeting as unexpected as it had been distracting from all that prevailed in her life until that moment.

Milo was not a toy boy, as some might disparagingly describe him and her involvement with the young man who would be confident as he mixed with her guests. He was twenty-seven and a fiendishly clever engineer who had designed, built, and then patented a small room heater that was so efficient that investors in his start-up venture were knocking at his door, keen to invest more in it and to see the start-up business grow and to encourage his mercurial inventive skills.

"Don't be long," he had asked in a low voice, following her for a few steps and his excuse to take a drink from one of the trays studiously placed on a table close to where they had been standing. Some of the guests, including his parents, were near neighbours on this stretch of the Thames riverbank and were out on the decked balcony enjoying the views of the wooded riverbanks and the warmth of the day.

"I'll try not to be, now go and mingle. The people we've invited are no strangers to you, Milo."

Now, she closed her bedroom door and walked up the straight staircase and into the throng of guests. They were to be seen chattering in the echoing living room where the old metal roof trusses were such a feature.

Milo's gaze upon her was again met as she picked up her glass of chilled white wine and soon joined in the lively conversation that swelled all around her. She knew only too well how he felt about being close to each other but not touching or speaking of what they had discovered.

She had taken a wild chance of going with him the first time, only to realise that she wanted so much more. A recklessly passionate tryst had become a prolonged fling, the discovery of which would have ruined all of her carefully laid plans and her prenup. There was too much money and property involved for either she or Adam to stray or, if they did, to take every precaution going to avoid any risk of either party discovering that the other had shared the heat.

But Adam had declared that he had asked a special guest, to him at least, to be at the party and so uncertainty abounded.

What a change it all was from the last time Milo had been with her; unlikely, and then gloriously unexpected, as his attention to her had become not so long ago. But not now.

2

Milo had chosen to be at the gym session that day on a break from my usual routine. He had also expressed pleasure to see her there too.

"I'm here almost every week, Milo," she had replied, "and I do the exercises more intensely when I'm here."

"And compete against the others, you mean?"

"Yes, you could say that. What about you...why be here? I usually see you out sculling on the river."

It seemed to her to be a very lonely pastime and the energy that she had seen him put into moving the single scull, the smooth rhythm of his coordinated pull on the oars and thrust of his legs as Milo sat on the roller seat, had captured her attention. The exercise, the intensity that she had seen him bring to moving the scull over often choppy water, had bestowed a rugged physique of broad shoulders, strong arms and legs, and it burned off any excess fat, of which she saw none.

"I'm taking a break from work and I need to ease aches and pains. I didn't warm down enough after the competition I entered last weekend. Sculling is a great way to unwind after the stresses of my business." He had spoken easily and now he shrugged. "I'll stow my kit bag away and get a mat."

"The store by the reception desk has them," she said helpfully. "The hire charge is a pound."

"See you in there then, Edith!" he smiled, his face creasing at the sides of his mouth.

Edith saw him taking in her appearance with a single drift of his soft brown eyes over what she had chosen to wear. "You will!"

He was glad to see her, needed that distraction after a messy break-up with a woman he'd met through his business, work that had been taking up so much of his time. He had not seen Edith looking so good, the tank top and high-waisted mini shorts shaping her beautifully. They were all but a second skin on her rounded hips, the curve of her mound and revealed strong slender legs. Her skin glowed with health and was lightly tanned, her glossy black hair swept back and fastened at the nape of her neck.

To him, the name Edith was only too proper, an old-fashioned name that belonged to another age and failed to fully define the woman she had become to him. In contrast, his name of Milo was of the moment but was not so much in use as to be familiar. He'd had his share of ribbing about it, both at school and then university, but his career had not suffered and his name even set him apart from others in his field of work. He did very well out of it and already had his own place, an apartment that had views of the river and that he lived in alone.

"Yes, you will see me! Now go, or you'll miss the start."

She took a last glance at herself in the mirror, set to one side of the door, before she went into the training room and laid her mat on the floor near the front. She didn't want to be distracted from her exercises by meeting Milo's look upon her. It had been only too unwavering and approving. She turned briefly to see him enter the room, the door creaking as Milo pulled it open, and her heart gave a little skip as she met a moment's smile that he directed her way.

Two weeks had passed since she had last seen Milo sculling on the river and now she could scarcely keep her eyes off him as he laid the mat at his feet and glanced around at others in attendance before they again settled upon her.

She couldn't help but smile at him, taken as she was by him and his ways.

Milo had a sensual mouth framed by a neatly clipped moustache and a beard that was thick, but neatly trimmed, but it failed to soften the strength in his jawline. Trimmed, or not, his bushy eyebrows were straight and Milo's pensive face was topped by a mass of thick silken hair that was unruly and swept back. She could so easily drown in the dark pools of his eyes whenever she met his look her way, a stilled wondering look that went with a soft smile teasing the corners of his mouth.

It seemed that he was into her, attracted to her, and she felt a little frisson of pleasure that it was so. Adam could be so remote and consumed by his work, his travels, and periods of absence of two or three days. It was then that she regretted, even resented, the fact that they had no children that would fill the emotional void, and the hours in the day, that she was left with. Life had become a prosperous, not conspicuously wealthy, arrangement between them.

So, Milo's presence at the exercise and yoga class had opened her eyes and mind to other possibilities, and that his look upon her suggested might be on his mind too. Milo was in control of his life, of that she had no doubt, and she wondered if she could find a place in that too if distraction could be found with him.

Milo worked prodigiously hard. She learned of that from his mother, a come-and-go friend as neighbours so often were. The Jacksons lived in a property a few plots up the lane from her and Adam, but only their son Milo was ever to be seen out on the river and she would often watch him sculling by and would wave, out of friendly greeting, Milo interrupting his momentum to offer and answering wave.

Through such fleeting moments, a bond was gradually forming and now he was in the same room with her and taking part in a yoga class.

She'd never thought that Milo would scull back towards her on the return leg of his last rowing session, hugging the shoreline as far as the spread of the oars, and overhanging branches of the trees on the riverbank allowed. He had chosen to stop and talk, gazing up at her as she stood on the deck that she often lay on, sunbathing, or in a sunchair reading, or scrolling through what was to be seen on her iPad.

"You look exhausted," she had ventured and had seen him laugh in that captivating way of his.

"I feel it after doing an interval session...fast and then slow...then fast again. I'll bear it in mind, the effect on me, the next time I call by and I see you standing on your sun deck." He had gone on to give a moment's stilled and appraising look upon her, dressed in a flattering orange tank top and cream shorts. "I'll have a reason to do so."

Now, Milo moved through the exercises with ease and showed how supple he was, his tight rowing shorts and high-collared vest, with short sleeves, leaving little for her or the other women in the group to imagine. She didn't think he was being deliberately provocative; it was just how sports clothes were produced these days.

"And you've sure got the body and the tackle to fill it," she murmured appreciatively, if only to herself, as she toiled to get through the exercises the instructor set for them. But she gave in to her raging thoughts; what she had seen was too much of a distraction and had unsettled what she thought was her only too-ordered life.

"Are you okay?" he asked, surprising her by sliding his mat beside her as the group thinned and only the fittest or most distracted, as she was, remained.

"Yes, there's not much more, I hope," she laughed softly so that only he could hear her. "Then I can relax on my sun deck and gaze at the river..."

"And I might paddle by and see you there. I'm minding my folk's place while they're away for a few days. They'll be back in time for your drinks party."

He had offered that snippet of info so easily.

A friend's son was into her and she wasn't doing anything to dissuade him from paying her some attention. It was something to set against the restrained ways that Adam showed his interest in her; something that was beginning to nag at her for the invitations to a drinks and nibbles party in a weekend's time. The guests now included a 'guy that he knew through his work' and that Adam wished to be there. She'd held her tongue but had been dismayed when it occurred to her that she would not be the first wife to discover that her husband had a gay streak in him. In that, perhaps, lay the real reason why he had prevailed upon her that they should have no kids, in spite of what her wishes and hopes had been and might still be.

Milo would take her mind off all of that, perhaps, she thought, wondering if she was imagining his interest in her as they began a step and balancing on one-foot routine with one arm stretched out.

Suddenly, she felt Milo's touch on her arm, but a moment's contact, as she lost her balance. Then it was gone. She'd forgotten to breathe steadily as instructed, but she had felt as if there was nothing else in her universe than his touch...on her bare shoulder that her clingy tank top revealed to his gaze, and now his soft touch as if it were a fleeting but purposeful caress.

But that touch, and her shock to feel it on her skin, made her unsteady. How would she react if that touch became a caress to the bare skin of her back, or to her thighs, to her bared breasts that she realised, again, were shaped in their rounded fullness by her top? His touch had sent tingling rushes to her nipples, sensations that she had not felt when Adam sought to touch her. Was it now a case of her reactions being driven by the touch of someone else to her skin, as well as where she was when it happened?

She listened to the instructions of the yoga teacher as her mind raced to other possible reactions to his touch. Would Milo caress her shoulders and neck, ease away her hair that she had tied back in a simple fastening and kiss her neck; go further and embrace her and not be bothered by the fact that she was some years older than him?

"You're doing well, Edith, so keep going," she heard him murmur, his voice coming from some faraway place as she imagined his hands drifting down over the curve of her hips and then the rounded firmness of her bum. Would she see his erection, that bulge in his training shorts now made larger and longer, still, as he imagined what she would look like stripped of her tank top and shorts? It would spring free of its confinement and she would be able to touch and caress it; to act wantonly and impetuously; to break out of the straitjacket that she sometimes felt her life to be.

"I'm trying to focus, Milo!" she breathes heavily, unsure where that remark came from or how it would sound to him.

The hand that had touched her now fell away and she gazed at him for an instant, to watch how he coped with the new exercise that the trainer led them into. She felt disappointed not to feel his touch and e especially as the new exercise tested her technique to the full. The group of them that remained had learned the first principles of it the week before but Milo, athletic as he was, took to it with surprising ease; so much so that she again felt a touch on her leg as he helped her to keep her balance.

"Thanks, but I'll have to manage on my own," she said, a rush of longing coursing through in response to his touch and keeping her voice low. What would the others be making of his behaviour or would they be too involved in what was being asked of them to even notice?

She certainly regretted the lack of his certain touch on her skin, the easing away of his fingers like a caress that set her pulse racing and tightened the cramp of lust in her tummy. Did Milo sense the effect that his touches had upon her and would he be hungering for so much more, just as she felt that hunger coursing through her body? Would he too be overwhelmed by the rush of blood, just as she now was, as he touched her and they each imagined their hands on a partner's skin, she reaching for him as Milo pushed her legs further apart before he lay between them.

She felt her breath hitch in her throat as she went through the exercise in a daze, his touch and her receptive mind taking her to places that she had not been in before...in the yoga class! Through the corner of her eye, and then when the yoga teacher spoke encouragingly to Milo, and he had to look away, she noticed the effect that she had on him.

The minutes of the lesson seemed to fly by, now, and she began to feel that his touches had not lessened whenever the opportunity arose. Would he be thinking like she was? Would he be dreaming of a time when they could be together and really touch the skin that was exposed to their gaze but, more enticingly, what was clothed and hidden from view and only shaped and moulded by synthetic fabrics? The warmer they became from the exercises of stretches, balance, posture, jumps and lunges, the closer their training clothes hugged their sins; her booty shorts now leaving little for him to imagine, how it shaped her mound and the short's hems gripping her thighs.

She was lost in a dreamy, sultry, daze and was startled on hearing a loud clap of the trainer's hands that brought the session to an end and the group gathered up their mats, unbidden.

Milo said nothing about what he had done to help her.

"I enjoyed that and it did me some good to ease away the strains of that rowing weekend," he confessed as they joined the line of attendees waiting to leave the small exercise hall and go to their lockers. "I'll go out for a short session in the boat when I get back..."

He watched her as Edith rubbed a towel over her face and dried off the perspiration to be seen there. Her skin seemed to glow from the effort she had put in.

"Then you may be here again next week?" she ventured, unable to deny the effect that being with him, and his touches, had upon her. Pleasure and risk had been discovered in the hour, or so, of the yoga and exercise class. She felt, as she tugged open her locker's door, how wet she was from thoughts of his touch and what it could lead to. "Go for your row, then come over to the house for lunch? I could do with some company...yours especially."

Milo was taken by her direct way of speaking and made sure they could not be overheard. "And I want to be the one to bring that to you, Edith."

She smiled happily upon hearing the news. There would be no need for prolonged moments of seduction, or lengthy foreplay, before conceding to what they both wanted of the other. It would be nice to be wooed, what woman didn't like that in a man, but she had other and more urgent needs. "Don't overdo the rowing, will you?"

"No, I won't, as I now have a reason not to."

Looking at her brazenly, and with his hopes for them clear, Milo left her after a slow and sliding caress to her arm. The next time he did that it would lead to so much more.

3

Edith rushed down the stairs from the balcony, her hair flying free around her face and her training shoes thumping on the wooden stair treads. She grabbed hold of the thin synthetic bow rope that Milo threw to her and tied it to a metal ring set into the concrete of the dock.

"You're here sooner than I expected!" she enthused breathlessly.

"I couldn't stay away!" he replied with a laugh. "You've gotten to me."

"That goes for both of us then!" she answered, marvelling at his toned physique and the glow of his skin. "You've done as I asked, I hope...not overdone it?"