The Door Is Always Open

"Keeping it all a secret is having its effect on me, sure."

Elena twisted on the narrow running board and leaned in to kiss him. She stilled the caress of his hand on her thigh, the rub of the denim on her skin something new in these ways of it.

"Come on, the work can get done and we share something better. I'll take your mind off what's bothering you. With me it's natural, to feel the way that you do, but it's a compliment to a woman of my age."

"You don't have to go there!" Oscar retorted, moving to kneel before her and pushing Elena against the pickup's side before kissing her hungrily. "I'll deal with everything in my way..."

"And take me there while you can!"

He couldn't deny that there was, still, a raging attraction for her and that he wanted to experience again what had been discovered with her yesterday, the pack of condoms still safely stowed in his small rucksack and unused. He wanted all that she was again offering, Gabi too, even if he knew it was beginning to feel so wrong, especially in Gabi's case.

He was becoming addicted to the sex with them, what the two women who were in his life, like no others, brought to his touch and sight. Neither of them had to flaunt their stuff for him; they were each enticing enough and had been over the years he and Niall had been buddies. Everything had been turned over since he had arrived home in Raleigh on leave.

Elena stood up and soon refastened the bandana around her head. He saw the sway of dangly earrings, their glitter in the hazy sunlight.

"Fuck..." he said softly, giving voice to him wanting her and she knew it. He grabbed his gear, turned away and pressed the fingers of one hand to the swell in his cargo pants. He felt warm throughout, nervy, and felt the lust building up in him once more. The dungarees and shirt that covered the woman he looked at, and lusted after, failed to take his mind off Elena's toned figure, the indolent sag of her large breasts and almost flat tummy. She was a strong and attractive woman, sexy in how she played him and pretended to be 'hard to get'.

"Quick!" Elena urged. "We've gotta get on as the breeze is picking up, and it looks like it might rain!"

"Then we can find shelter in the barn and find something else to do until it stops!"

On a laugh, he jogged away from her and was seen pulling the chainsaw off the ground, tugging the starter cable handle that brought the machine into spluttering life. When he looked back at her he saw Elena grin and wag a finger at him.

He would get busy with her once more and enjoy the fun that she brought to him before it was too late. Niall would save him from himself; his pal was cut from a very different kind of cloth.

10

"Just stay with me...sleep in my bed," she had asked, wanting to again feel his naked body against her, his heat of strange solace just as it had been so long ago when she had nursed him as a young infant, had Oscar sleep in her bed and long before her marriage went sour. Now, his presence offered comfort, what most would think a despicable and depraved way for her to behave.

"We've got to get used to it being different again," he answered directly.

"I sure know that!"

She relaxed in his loose embrace but soon turned and started kissing him in the darkness of her room. She wanted to share in it differently and not see where to go but rely on touch. Soon, they were making out and offering caresses to the other's unseen body.

"Jeez...mom, we never stop!"

"Cos you seem to be thinking of nothing else darlin' when you're with me."

Gabi had reached down and grabbed his hard cock. It seemed as if he kept on lusting after her and was perpetually hard when she was in his company, in the house and now in her bed. She heard his breathing change as she offered slow caresses to it and massaged his balls. Oscar devoted attention to her breasts, rolling each nipple between his gently clamping lips as one hand stroked over her mons, fingers pressing slowly into her, just enough to bring her on.

"It shouldn't be, but I love you doin' that!" she cried out, bucking her hips off the bed to meet his questing touches.

"And I have so much to remember about you." He persuaded Gabi to move, pressed against her, eased Gabi's leg over his thigh and caressed her slit with the tip of his penis, wanted to take her as they lay on their sides.

"No, not like that again!." She couldn't stand his ways any longer and made Oscar lie back before she climbed onto him, had her nipples caress his chest in lazy sweeps as she gripped his prick, soon aiming it at her slicked heat before slamming down on it purposefully. "You'll break little old me!"

She needed this again and from him, rose and settled back down on his cock, each movement slowly slicking his flesh with her juices until he again slid smoothly in and out of her body, her breasts swaying and her hips soon pushing forward and back, her muscles gripping him like a vice.

"Nothing's holding you back now!" he gasped, lifting his head from the pillows to see how she worked him, his mouth stilling the sway of her breasts over his skin.

Gabi looked up at the ceiling, a deep groan of wanton pleasure escaping her lips. He had wanted to make love again, and now they were. She sat on him and enjoyed the feel of his hard cock filling her slicked pussy. It felt like it belonged there. She leant forward and began kissing him again while not moving. She didn't need him to fuck her, she just wanted to feel him inside her and to draw wayward comfort from that.

"I'm lost...have become completely lost in what we're doing!" he groaned, unable to resist what she was asking of him. He pulled her down, fiercely, gripping her neck and gasping through the kisses he sought from her. "I'm losing it again...can't hold it back! I want to do that for you!"

Gabi shuddered on feeling Oscar erupt, the spurts of his release, and she lay on him still kneeling and with her lips pressed to his throat. She shuddered feeling overwhelmed by the raw pleasure that he had brought to her once more.

"Darlin'...oh darlin'! I'm not being fair to you, and I will have to give up wanting this and let you go, to let you live your own life!"

"Soon but let me and let us...get through these times. I'm hooked on it, what you bring to me." Oscar said it in a disbelieving voice and tugged on her hair to make Gabi lift her face and look at him. "What we've had and what we've done is wrong, I know that, and it's taken us over..."

Gabi nodded, and shivered, as she felt him move inside her again, couldn't stop the waves of her orgasm washing over her, his slow movements within her bringing them on, one after the other. She hadn't been with a man for so long, Oscar becoming a surrogate for all that was normal between two people; his attraction to her, as he matured, met a need in her of being wanted. Love and dependency, in either of them, had become a raging sexual attraction.

She had lived it all out, every wayward moment, that she and Elena had often talked about in jest. Those times were gone and now the present, with Oscar, held her in its unrelenting grip.

As consenting adults, they had pursued a relationship that, if discovered, would put them beyond society's acceptance. No one else was harmed by the secrecy of what they pursued, no one was betrayed by the image that each of them hold of the other and who they were. The only powerlessness that they felt was to confront the temptation of knowing each other again. They felt guilt, of that she was sure, but they had failed to give full voice to that when they were together. What they had done was conflicted by dismay that it had happened; not only that first time, when she confronted his loss to military life but that it had again been pursued from the moment he had returned home and the door had closed behind him. It had shut out the harsh reality that refusing him would have led to.

She had to let go, and soon, for his sake as much as hers.

11

Elena felt her cell phone tremble in the breast pocket of her work shirt. She stopped working and glanced at Oscar who shrugged. They had exchanged heated words on the drive over to a customer's place, the company with commercial properties scattered about Raleigh. Bidding for the work had been keenly contested and Verdant had won. She needed him to be around all day, but he had told her that he wanted to fill the hours that remained of his leave doing something else than landscape work, pleasurable as it was to relax with her afterwards.

"It depends on who is giving the orders, is that it?" she had flared, the drive to the first call-in almost at an end. "You'll do whatever Gabi asks of you. Is that it, now?"

"No it's not, and as I've said before, leave her out of this!"

"That's not so easy to say now, is it?"

The sudden and brittle mood, the change, was so different from the day before. He'd been later than usual getting home to Gabi, the tempo of Elena's claims upon him ramped up and she had to stifle her cries against his chest as never before. She had become besotted with him and what he sought to share with her; to do that tempestuously, as if the frenzy that became their claims upon each other would finally bring them to their senses and they would end their affair.

She saw who was calling.

"Niall darlin'!"

"Yeah, it's only me. I'll be getting home by six. I wonder if I could see Oscar?"

She heard the hesitancy in his voice and chose to put some distance between her and Oscar so that she could talk to him and not be overheard. "See him and not have supper with me? You've been gone a while." It sounded pathetic, her wish to have him with her upon his return. "He won't be here for much longer, so I guess..."

The hesitancy in her voice gave him the answer he sought.

"Great! I'll make it up to you and I'll work extra hard. The training course was great, and it got me thinking about how to make the extra business come our way or to pitch for it!"

Elena heard the enthusiasm in his voice, and she could believe what he had said, his loyalty to her unshakable. "Oscar's been of help to me..."

"I'm glad and I'll hear all about it, I'm sure, from both of you."

And that would be the problem for her, not to get in the first word on how the days had passed by, and in Oscar's company, doing the work Verdant had been instructed upon. She had fantasized about having an affair, something illicit and scandalous but had shied away from what remained a taboo subject to so many people. It now occurred to her, as she again looked Oscar's way, that their affair would be brought to a sudden end before it had run its full course. Maybe it already had done with Niall soon coming home and Oscar's leave drawing to a close, the sharing of the heat to be remembered as an interlude and no more. It wasn't something that had been at the forefront of her mind, but Nall's call had brought her down to earth, with a bump.

♥

Jack's Tavern was the place they ended up, parking their bike's alongside others who frequented the place just off the Parkway. It was rowdy, smokey and the lighting low, the music loud but not deafening. The waitress was attentive enough and soon brought them their meal, some ribs and fries, along with lite beers. They had sought out each other's company but had no plans to get wrecked, only to be hauled over by the traffic cops if they were unlucky enough to meet them.

"Thanks for helping me out,' Niall mumbled, his mouth full of food. 'Mom said you got through the work quicker than she thought possible...so, what else happened?" Niall looked quizzically at Oscar as he took a sip of his beer. "You've kept quiet on being with her."

"It went okay, and I wasn't goin' to let her down in any way," Oscar replied somewhat evasively, meeting his buddy's look for an instant only. "I don't remember ever seein' her in work clothes and so I saw another woman in her when that happened."

"Meanin'....?"

"Meanin' nothing." Oscar shovelled food into his mouth and wondered how much more to say. "I've only ever seen Elena dressed in ways my mom does when we all meet up and like we did a few nights ago. The dungarees she wore made her look different, from other times."

"And you liked what you saw and took your chance?"

"Sure..."

Niall studied his friend closely. For the first time, in all the years they had known each other, his pal was being evasive, and he wouldn't look him in the eye. They ate and drank quickly as if the clock was running down.

"You had her, didn't you? You fucked her...my mom...you fucked with Elena!" he growled, dismayed with Oscar's bravado that was to be seen in his eyes, and anger heard in his voice. He pushed the plate with what remained of his food away from him. He did so angrily, almost tipping over the glass that still contained much of his beer. "Jeez...oh Jeez! Say somethin' damn it!"

"Not on that I won't." Oscar had taken longer to answer but met Niall's look on him once more. "It wouldn't be fair on either of them."

Niall gaped, then reached for his friend's arm, stopping him from lifting his beer glass to his lips. "Fair...fair...fair on either of them? You...you mean...you....?"

"I mean those secrets stay that way and you shouldn't butt in. I worked with your mother, with Elena, and we got closer than before, but she was always in charge. I wasn't going to go where I wasn't wanted. I sure didn't know you'd gone all protective of her and on me."

"I don't want her to be used, got that?" Niall glared at his friend and couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. It went a long way to explaining how Elena had been when he had arrived home. She'd been all jittery. "You're just spinnin' me a line!"

Oscar's grip was fierce. "Sit down! If you remember, we talked about things happenin' when we met at your place, or you came over to mine. It wouldn't be right to talk about it in every darn detail..."

Niall slumped back onto the bench seat and lifted the beer glass to his lips. How the hell was he to look Elena in the eye and know that his friend had taken her?

"How many times?" he asked directly, giving his buddy a quizzical stare, " you sure didn't waste any time once I'd gone?"

"Twice...yeah twice," Oscar had gone back on his intentions, of not speaking about it.

Niall shook his head in disbelief at the casualness in his reply. "It didn't matter too much to you...you just wanted to do it?"

Oscar sighed in despair. "This sure isn't somethin' we should be talking about.."

"Only, in your case, fantasy became real!" Niall stood up and grabbed his thin leather jacket, shoved his arms angrily into the sleeves and zipped them shut. He slammed his helmet down onto his head as he made ready to leave. "Well, I'm back here and I can help mother, Elena, through the days after you've gone and it sure won't be in the ways that you mean!"

"It mattered to me if that's of any use to you?" Oscar strode beside him as they went to the parking lot. "Well?"

Niall eased his friend's grip from his arm. "What you do with Gabi is your business. Stay away from Elena, do you hear? She may be lonely, in some ways, but she has me to help with the business and there's goin' to be some news for her, and soon, where it affects me."

He had not been home long enough to tell Elena about Sarah, a girl he kept meeting on the landscape and tree management courses. He had done so again, and this time he had asked her to spend a day or two with Verdant.

Oscar was seen to mount his bike and the engine was gunned into life before he throttled back to a growling burble of engine noise. "I'll see you again I hope before I go back?"

Niall answered his yell with his own. "Yeah, I guess, just give me a day or so!"

"That's all I have left!"

They rode off to their homes but in different directions, their thoughts possessed by what had been said, or confessed to in Oscar's case.

12

"I haven't seen that look for quite a while, darlin'. Did your time with Oscar not turn out as you wanted?"

"They've been better..." he answered sullenly on gazing her way.

Elena remembered a truculent young teenager whom she sometimes caught lying to her, or who was evasive in his answers. She felt the rush of a moment's panic grip her. Were the roles about to be reversed and he would take her up on what she might say about having Oscar around and working for her, what that may have led to? If that was what lay behind his questioning looks on her, as she followed him into the pristine kitchen, then she would have to think fast about how to answer this stunning development.

Elena saw his hand shaking as a glass tumbler was held under the tap. "You can tell me. We never kept any secrets from each other before."

He took his time to answer her and took pleasure in how she had dressed up, some, and in case, he now realised, if Oscar came by and before they had gone out, to indulge in their teasing banter of old.

Now, he realised, as he saw how her wrap-around top shaped her breasts, the myriad of colours matching a pair of sky-blue slacks and white pumps, she had dressed in case her lover came by. She never went so far after a tiring working day. Even as her son, he saw what Elena would bring to the eye and touch, only he'd never have played it out, not with Gabi and certainly not Elena. Talk it had always been, but his buddy had a wilder streak and his evasive answers had set a destructive hare running in his mind.

"Did he tamp you; did Oscar try it on with you?"

"Don't go there! Don't say another word, please!" she cried out, her eyes widening in dismay. Elena pressed fingers to his lips as if that would silence him. "He...Oscar, he has his ways."

"He forced himself on you...forced you into doing it" he yelled, Elena was shocked by how deep his voice had become, along with the anger that seemed to burn in his eyes.

"Loneliness makes you do crazy things sometimes. I'm not proud of what happened, and I knew that in the hours before you came home." She saw him a nod and felt that Niall seemed to be rooted to the spot, her touch to his arm failing to persuade him to move and sit down in the living area and talk it out. "The years haven't been easy on me as you may have noticed, Niall, darlin'."

"But you're still beautiful and have so much going for you, along with Verdant and the future for it," he replied, his voice lighter. "I never thought it would ever go so far, two boys talking of fooling around, and with...."

He didn't need to finish what he had begun to say.

"It's over darlin.' There was never going to be any o love in it, not at all," Elena confessed as she moved away from his side, and turned to look Niall's way before she held out a hand to him. She had been flattered to have a young man claim her so lustfully. "Don't go leaving me because of this, will you?"

She struggled to keep from pleading that he stayed with her.

"No, but I reckon we put some space between us and Gabi, and Oscar too, though he's goin' back to base in the next day or so." He felt her shaking as she clung to him. "I love you, Mom, if you know what I mean?"

"Sure, I do...it's what keeps me going. Trust me again, please?"

"Yeah, I will." He allowed her to embrace him and put from his mind her fleshy beauty, her energy, how she may have looked as she was held naked in his friend's arms, the large and empty bed in her room creaking and rocking, his mom being fucked by his horny pal from school and now a Marine home on some leave.

As for him, he would need raven-haired Sarah, with her wonderful smile and confident ways, to take his mind off everything.

"I've asked someone to call in and to help us, to see what we do. I met her on that course. I think you'll like her. I sure hope that you will, because I've known her for a while and her folks' business was wound up. So she's wondering where to go and to still do the work that she loves."