The Idiot and the Angel

He tilted his head back, closed his eyes and let the warm sun caress his face. For a few fleeting moments he was eight years old again, crouching on the edge of rock pool with a shrimping net, gazing down in wonder at all the starfish and anemones.

He stood up and inspected his handiwork. Not bad. Not bad at all. The garden was neat and tidy and awash with lovely, salmon pink geraniums. Even though it was quite late in the season, they still looked strong, healthy and full of life. And he was sure they'd remain that way for a good few weeks yet. He never really understood why they were so often maligned by short-sighted experts who thought them staid and unexciting. How could they be? Surely, only the narrow minded would overlook such obviously attractive plants?

Still, wasn't everyone guilty of missing the blindingly obvious sometimes? Of sleepwalking through large swathes of life and failing to appreciate the simple, everyday beauty? Couldn't we all do with gazing into the rock pools again from time to time?

The glass door of the summer room slid open behind him. He turned round to see Mrs. Hooper standing in the doorway smiling. She was tightly wrapped in a full length dressing gown and wore a brightly coloured scarf on her head. They had certainly become this summer's item of choice for her. He couldn't remember ever having seen her in a dressing gown though. Perhaps she'd only just got up. And yet it didn't look as though she had. Her face looked clean, fresh and youthful and her eyes were clear and bright. She might even have been wearing some lipstick, it was hard to tell.

"Isn't it a wonderful day?"

He smiled back at her. "Yep. Certainly is."

"How much longer do you think you'll be here?" She asked, needlessly adjusting her headscarf.

"About another hour or so, I reckon."

She slowly nodded her head. "Good. That's good. Would you like a coffee?"

"Yes please. That'd be nice."

She seemed a little distracted, as if there was something else on her mind. "I wonder, would you mind having a look at these before you go?" She said, pointing down to a large terracotta pot close to her feet that was crammed full of the pink geraniums.

He glanced at the pot and recognized it as the one that normally sat beneath the kitchen window. She must have moved it. "Of course. No problem."

"Thank you Duncan." She hesitated and smiled again. "Well, I'd better get on. The housework isn't going to do itself."

"No, I don't suppose it will." He said, smiling as much to himself as to her. He watched her slide the door shut again and disappear into the house.

He'd been Mrs. Hooper's gardener for the best part of eighteen months now, ever since her husband of thirty-six years had up and left her. That was all he knew about their separation - she never spoke about it and he never enquired. But he did know that she had lived alone ever since. As for his relationship with her? Well, they got on just fine. They discussed the weather, the black spot on the roses and the price of petrol. She made him coffee in the same old Union Jack mug and occasionally helped him tidy up the greenhouse. She'd once asked if he would change a light bulb in the hallway and had laid a trail of newspapers throughout the house for him to stand on. Mostly, however, she just left him alone to get on with his work.

"Better take a look at these then." He said to himself, as he knelt beside the pot of geraniums.

From his position he could see the interior of both the summer room and the adjoining living room beyond. Both rooms were absolutely immaculate. Spotless. Not a single thing seemed out of place. He wondered what on earth there was for Mrs. Hooper to do. And then, as if on cue, the door from the hallway to the living room opened and in she came pushing an upright vacuum cleaner, wearing nothing but her headscarf.

For a few moments he was absolutely transfixed. He simply could not believe his eyes. In a single instant, the old Mrs. Hooper had vanished and been replaced by an entirely different Mrs. Hooper - a daring, sexy, completely naked Mrs. Hooper. A woman who's every move now set his pulse racing.

He watched her breasts sway and her buttocks flex as she moved the vacuum back and forth in long, deliberate sweeps. And he watched her turn and push it towards him, giving him an unfettered view between her legs. It was inconceivable that she hadn't noticed him - she must have known he was watching her - yet, she didn't look at him or acknowledge his presence once. Not even when, to his utter amazement and delight, she continued her housework in the summer room.

He watched her reach up on tip-toes to clean the tops of shelves. He watched her push her bottom out and bend over in front of him and straighten already neat seat covers and cushions. And he watched her get down on her hands and knees and wipe the gleaming skirting boards. He saw every one of her wrinkles, creases and folds. He saw every goose bump, every freckle and every mole. He marveled at every single inch of her smooth, pale, wonderful body.

He wasn't entirely sure what was going on. It all seemed so surreal. And he certainly never saw it coming. Not in a million years. Did she want him to respond, or did she just want him to watch her? Did she want him at all?

His cock had responded sure enough - a few seconds after she'd walked into the living room. And it had stiffened and twitched in his trousers ever since. He looked down at his lap and gave it a long, firm squeeze through the fabric. He hoped she wanted a response. He'd love to wank and come for her. It was all he could think about doing. Whether she knew it or not, she had seen to it that it was going to happen. It was just a matter of when and where.

He looked up to find Mrs. Hooper standing directly in front of him on the other side of the glass door. She had one hand on her belly and the other on her hip and was staring down at him with her mouth slightly open. His heart pounded in his chest as he saw that only a few short inches and a thin pane of glass separated him from her fabulous pussy.

The truth be told, his recollection from this point on was a bit sketchy. Not only because of his continuing incredulity at the situation he found himself embroiled in, but also because Mrs. Hooper had aroused him to such an extent that his mind had quickly turned to nonsensical mush. There'd been no previous indication that she possessed either the potential or the inclination to act in such a way and, as such, he'd been caught completely off guard. If Mrs. Hooper had desired a natural, uncontrived response from him, then she'd gone about it in exactly the right way.

He did, however, remember a few things quite clearly. He remembered the look on her face when she'd narrowed her eyes and chewed the corner of her lip as her breasts heaved in tandem with him stroking his cock. He remembered how he'd all but come when he'd been utterly mesmerized by the mouthwatering sight of her thick, pouting labia glistening with syrupy wetness. And he couldn't forget the moment she'd gasped and her entire body had trembled and shook as she watched him finally come. And, oh, how he'd come.

He'd been gripped by a brain-scrambling climax as he sprayed out jet after jet of milky spunk. Her hands had clawed her breasts and her eyes had grown wider and wider with each fresh spurt. And it had seemed to go on forever.

They'd stood looking at one another, gulping down great lungfuls of air, for some time after they'd both come. He watched her repeatedly slide her forefinger between the lips of her pussy and then put it to her mouth as she watched his spunk trickle down the glass of the door. And when she eventually turned around and walked back through the summer room, his cock had begun to thicken and grow again as he gazed at her lovely bottom and thought about how much he'd love to fuck her.

It was fair to say that he was more than a little bit apprehensive about his next visit to see Mrs. Hooper. What had happened between them had been, well, unbelievable and he had absolutely no idea what her reaction would be now that she'd had time to reflect.

He need not have worried though.

On arriving she greeted him with a warm smile. "Shall I make you that coffee now?"

He nodded and smiled back. Then she stepped towards him, draped her arms over his shoulders and pressed her body to his.

"Oh...and just one other thing." And then she kissed him. It was a long, tender kiss that told him more about her than eighteen months of working for her ever had. It was a kiss that blew away the last vestiges of the old Mrs. Hooper and issued in the new one.

"I've never kissed a man with a beard." She said, studying his face and gently stroking his chin.

When she returned with his drink they sat in the garden and chatted. For the first time in their short relationship they talked casually about everything and nothing. He told her the story of the shrimping net and the rock pool and she smiled and softly stroked his thigh. But then, after he'd finished, her expression had changed and she'd excused herself and gone back inside the house.

As he sipped his coffee watching her through the kitchen window a sudden realization hit him. What if there never had been an old or a new Mrs. Hooper? What if there had always just been Mrs. Hooper? What if the only thing that had changed was the way he saw her?

Maybe he'd been so incredibly aroused and come so much because she'd completely opened up to him, both physically and emotionally. That she'd wanted him, needed him. And, in return, she'd opened his eyes and his mind and handed him back the wonder.

She hadn't changed at all. She was still the same gorgeous, sensuous, intelligent, humorous, exciting woman that she'd always been. He'd just not seen it.

And yet, something didn't quite add up. Why had she decided to open up to him now?

She was nowhere to be found the next time he called. He'd let himself into the back garden and done a couple of hours work, but there'd been no sign of her. She wasn't there the time after that either. He called round to ask the neighbours if they knew where she was, but they were of little help. They said she was quite a private person - he was the only visitor they ever saw - so they'd never really had much to do with her. He got the distinct impression that he was taking up too much of their valuable time. He called round to see her once more after that, but there had still been no sign of her. He'd checked the back garden one last time and was sad to see that the geraniums had finished flowering and were dying back. He drove past the house a week or two later and saw that a 'For Sale' sign had been put up in the front garden. He never called again after that.

About a month after his last visit a florist's van pulled up outside his house. The lady delivery driver said she had something for him from the company acting on behalf of the estate of the late Mrs. Sylvia Hooper. There was no letter of explanation, just a small, cardboard box containing his old Union Jack mug, filled with compost and planted with a lovely, salmon pink geranium.