The Tart and the Carpenter

Hello Readers! This is a very, very, very long story about an older man (Albert) who beds the town squeeze (Vanessa) while he's completing a carpentry project on her family's mansion. This story, in its length, will not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's lush in its eroticism and sexy when it comes to the age gap between the two main characters. Thank you for reading!

Part One: Genesis of Temptations

If you were to slowly but gently open the door to Vanessa's bedroom you would not think to yourself, "This is the room of a teenage tart." It was a beautiful room decorated with vibrant sheets and comforters, highlighted by pale pinks and purples. Upon opening the door to the room there greeted, immediately, the sensual sight of a breathtaking canopy bed fashioned only for a young woman in the prime - thus far - of her sexual life.

Like most teenagers, she had odds and ends strewn about the floor: clothes, comic books, magazines, and compact discs that she had to scrounge for to play her favorite music. Her walls were donned with glossy prints of teen idols in various rock star poses and dramatic scenes from her favorite films. These men on her walls were the fantasy of her fantasy.

On the wall immediately above her bed were dozens of Polaroid snapshots of herself and her countless boyfriends and the occasional female confidante who she could, every so often, indulge in telling her deepest desires and secrets to. These incidences, though, were not numerous, as young females have a way of blabbing the truth as if a million bumblebees were escaping from their mouths.

Connected to her bedroom was a large, spacious bathroom and on the far side of the bedroom was a patio door which opened into a large second-story deck, a big feat for such a small girl. At this moment, a middle-aged man was out on the deck, doing his repairs on it. Over the years the wood had accumulated shoddy rot and he was using the utmost of his carpentry skills to fix the problem and mend the porch into what would ultimately be a grand precipice overlooking the immediate, nearly-neon green backyard, beyond that lying orchards and rows of lemon trees, olive trees, and trees that grew oranges. The family was one of the wealthiest in town and it was no wonder that this young lady named Vanessa had maids to cater to her and her family's every whim, although she insisted they were not to touch her bedroom; it was a place of sanctuary and privacy for her.

The man who was repairing the deck was named Albert, or Al. Either name suited him just fine. He was nearly fifty years old and looked every day of it: his tall, slender frame held a face that wore the occasional wrinkle, particularly the crinkle of crow's feet around his blue-green eyes when he smiled. It really was his eyes that were the most beautiful feature of his face; they were almost a sea-green in their color. His hair was dark, with specks of gray, slightly curly and a bit long for an older man, ending halfway down his neck. Above his lip settled a black mustache that looked full of mischief when he grinned. His large hands were rough from the long years of his craft, though he had always enjoyed his profession; taking something ugly and making it beautiful was a sense of therapeutic ease for him.

He was not what you'd call a stereotypically handsome man. Sure, occasionally glimpses of a romantic hero would shine through, but he was a regular joe who enjoyed regular things: Television, good food, repairing cars, Playboy Magazine, and, of course, pursuing the curvaceous and endlessly vexing creatures that are referred to as women.

That's not to say he was a womanizer. Far from it, in fact. It seemed he thought about the opposite sex often but was, just as often, victim to his own palm. It had been years since he had felt the flesh of a woman against his and he missed it terribly. In this sense, he was a lonely man. He had been married for a few short years in his mid-thirties, but the wedding vows meant more to him than it did to her, and her infidelities were what ended the marriage. He was glad to be rid of her, though bachelorhood did not fulfill the promise of college girls and long legs like he thought it would. He had to face facts: he was a nearing half a century of fantasy, and it didn't look like he had any inclination to let go of those daydreams. Ah, the bite of reality.

At that moment there was a feminine rap on the patio door and Vanessa stepped out onto the deck and walked over to where Al was hunched over, hammer poised. A few minutes ago, she had asked if he wanted some yellow lemonade to quench his thirst in the hot summer air. He had agreed and had forgotten all about it.

"Here you go," the young daughter said sweetly. "It may sound silly, but I put it in a sippy cup for you; I wouldn't want you to spill any on the porch you're supposed to be fixing."

He laughed aloud at her youthful cautiousness and took the drink. "Thank you, it's much appreciated."

"Let me know if you need anything else." And at those last words, she scampered back into the house merrily.

Albert stood at the edge of the porch looking over the great land that was sprawled before him. The orchards, the bright green grass, it almost seemed to go on endlessly although it must've likely been an acre or half of that. He was finding that there were many beautiful things about this new carpentry job, least of all the carpentry. The lovely young woman who had just given him his drink was absolutely charming and quite easy of the eyes.

She wore the standard outfit of a young lady in the summertime: denim shorts that showed much of her legs and a white t-shirt tucked into the waist. She was slim and short in stature, maybe 5'3", and she had long, golden blond hair that reached nearly to the small of her back. Her eyes were large and innocent and blue in color. Her poise and elegance suggested a gracefulness beyond her years, but it was the mischievous glint in her eye that suggested she may be trouble for him. Her breasts were full, and he noted this; it was unusual to see someone of her youthful age so well-developed. He appreciated the full effect her womanliness had on him, though he realized that, at the age of eighteen, she was not yet a seasoned woman. He scolded himself. Yet he could not help the growing feeling in his jeans. He remembered when her father, Carl, had hired him for the job that he had mentioned something about his daughter having just turned eighteen. At that point, Albert was mainly concerned with the details of the paycheck and couldn't care less about the daughter Carl was mentioning. Now he cared a little bit more than he should have and he recognized this.

Standing there alone on the deck he marveled at the mansion's voluptuous wealth. But he marveled more at the daughter of such a palace. There was a pack of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve of his t-shirt; he felt for it instinctively but pulled his hand away. He was trying to kick the addiction, although carrying the cigarettes around on his person would only heighten the temptation, not suppress it. The subject of temptations was making itself very clear that day and he took a measured sip of lemonade. The truth, in fact, did taste good.

Part Two: Dancer's Attraction

Vanessa found herself downstairs, the noise of the construction upstairs in the distance. She liked Albert quite a bit; in fact, she felt some sort of subtle attraction that she had yet to identify or recognize. But she did not like the hammering, the drilling, the saws at work with their shrieks and buzzes and thudding thumps.

At the moment, she was sitting on the sofa, her soft warm body tucked into the cushions, smooth thighs abundant and thickening as she curled her feet up under her bottom. She was talking with one of her few and far between girlfriends.

She and Melanie were both dancers on the cheerleading squad that year. True, Melanie was what you'd classify as a "fair-weather friend" but, for the moment, they were getting along swimmingly as the two adolescents gabbed endlessly on their cell phones. Vanessa smiled her beautiful white smile and giggled at a joke Melanie told her. Though they were acquaintances, Melanie could hardly be categorized as the type of friend you could lean on in hard times. She, Melanie, was a fiery redhead, also eighteen years of age. What she lacked in intelligence and loyalty she made up for in humor and a fierce nature that intimidated most of the boys they knew.

"So," Melanie said after a pause. "After practice tomorrow, how about I come over to your house? We can go over our cheers. We'll kick some serious ass."

"Yeah, that sounds good. Maybe we could grab a bite to eat tomorrow, too. I'm starving."

Melanie laughed at her spoiled friend's dramatics. "Well, I am sure you will eat before then. Hey, is that old guy still working on your porch?"

"Yeah, he's still at it."

"Hey, I know, I'll come over tomorrow after practice and we'll tease the hell out of him. How's that sound?"

Vanessa giggled. "The idea has some sort of warped genius to it. Not that I mind it, I tell you."

"Oh, so he's cute, huh?"

Vanessa shrugged. "Eh, I haven't noticed, to be honest."

"You? Not notice someone in pants? How is that possible?"

Vanessa began to protest in a teasing and exaggerated way, but at that point her father tapped her on the shoulder and announced it was time for dinner and to wash up for the grand feast. Vanessa nodded and said her goodbyes, hanging up the phone.

"And make sure to ask Albert if he'd like to join us," her father commanded in the usual rough military voice he had learned so many years ago. "I don't want him to become an old dry scarecrow out there."

"Okay Dad," Vanessa said obediently and walked up the winding staircase to the second floor where Albert was located. For some reason she was kind of surprised at her father's offer. Why hadn't she thought of inviting Albert in for supper? He was a nice man, and her dad was right: he had probably worked up quite an appetite heaving and huffing out in the sunlight all day. The July heat in this part of the country could steal the strength from even the strongest of men. Her lack of manners may have been attributed to the natural rudeness that only the youthful carry unknowingly.

Vanessa entered her bedroom and saw Albert hunched over on the porch, his back to her. She stepped with silent delicate steps on the carpet, though she realized he could not hear her approaching anyway with the metal shrieks of the saw he held. Standing on the other side of the patio door, where the air conditioning ballooned itself invisibly, she watched the older man that was mending the deck. He was wearing worn-out jeans that suited his slim legs well, giving shape to them. Her baby blue eyes wandered up his body casually, almost sexily. He was wearing a snug gray t-shirt and she noticed for the first time that, curled up in his left sleeve, was a rectangular box of what she assumed was cigarettes. Also, for the virgin time she noticed a tattoo on one of his biceps. It looked to be a Chinese or Japanese symbol of some sort, although what it meant, she could not decipher. It was attractive. On his feet he wore a pair of strong brown boots that looked like they had seen better days. Her eyes wandered back up to his butt; it had just the right amount of perk to make it look cute and the right amount of flatness to make it look masculine and not femininely voluptuous. His body is wonderful, she thought to herself, and felt a river of excitement flood her small cotton panties.

Yes, he was different. She was used to clean-cut adolescent boys who were feminine and blond, almost dainty in their ways. They were ungodly thin with a focus on jogging and vegetable juice when, really, at their age, they should've been focused on pizza joints and guzzling beers behind their parents' backs. But here was a man. She guessed his age to be about fifty and this forbidden nature excited her. Albert looked like some sort of glistening god underneath the merciless rays of light, and, with his back to her, this middle-aged man was completely unaware of the young lady's quick-growing infatuation with him.

With the slightly prominent edge of her clear, manicured nail, she tapped on the glass. He did not hear her in his frenzy of sound. When a pause in his work came, she tried again and he turned around and looked at her, grinning. She opened the patio door and spoke.

"Sorry to disturb you, Albert," she smiled, "but we're just sitting down to dinner. Would you like to join us? It's supposed to be a big feast."

Albert, still smiling, put down the hammer and wiped his hands on a rag. "Sure, that'd be great. Thank you guys so much." He looked around awkwardly. "Uh, is there anywhere I can kind of clean up? There's a lot of dirt underneath my fingernails."

She giggled in her youthful girlishness. "Of course, I was just going to do the same thing. Come on inside, it's much cooler in here."

"Don't mind if I do. It's hot as hell out here." He entered the house with imposing masculinity.

"You can use my bathroom if you'd like," she offered.

Albert thought about it for a moment. Using a young woman's private bathroom was a very personal thing, or so he led himself to believe. He had seen the bathroom with the occasional glance and knew it was very beautiful, even sparkling, for a commode. He didn't want to dirty it or soil it in an unnecessary way, although that was the point of such a place.

"It's okay, I'll use the bathroom downstairs," he countered.

"Suit yourself," she said and went into her bathroom to wash her hands, leaving the door open. For some reason Albert, with his slight touches of gray hair, found himself compelled to lean in the washroom's doorway as the young lady scrubbed her neatly manicured nails and hands and they chatted as if they had known each other years instead of just a few days.

Of course, there was the usual awkwardness of a virgin attraction that two people feel. But Vanessa, he noticed, seemed unusually comfortable for someone so young. She chatted animatedly in her oblivious and refreshing youth. They talked of the deck, mostly, and its progress. He couldn't help but notice the sensual smoothness of her tanned legs, the natural curve of her bottom that her small denim shorts offered, and he wondered, for a brief moment, what lied beneath them. A most secret place, he thought to himself. Albert looked about him in the surrounding bedroom. It was decorated as if for a princess in her prime. One thing he noticed was the numerous and multicolored teddy bears upon the shelves on her walls, probably given to her by angsty and acned high school boys won at carnivals, he thought to himself. He smiled and tucked his dirty hands into his pockets, feeling twice the man he did even just a few minutes before.

When Vanessa finished grooming her nails and hands for supper - a royal habit he himself was never taught as a child - the odd twosome left her bedroom and walked down the spiral staircase together. Their mutual attraction was undeniable at this point, and they found that their close proximity, her slim, soft arm nearly rubbing against his, smothered their quickening heartbeats and heightened their senses.

Part Three: Family Dinner

The dining room was a grand affair. A long, rectangular table sat in the middle of it, Vanessa's parents - Beatrice and Carl - sitting at each of the heads of the table, and Albert and Vanessa themselves sitting across from one another on the sides. The ceilings were high and golden in color with a great chandelier hanging from the belly of it like a full cow's udder set aglow. Albert had only been inside the mansion on the rare occasion and never imagined the depths of it to be so monstrous in its wealth. The dining room reminded him of photographs he had seen of the Sistine Chapel: artistic, magnificent in its beauty.

Circling the table were two butlers who dressed the table with bowls of fettucine pasta, a full salad, and plates of cheese, ham, and juicy wedges of orange for the foursome to add to their third square for the day. Once everyone was set for the meal, Carl, in his somewhat insolent, military manner, shooed the staff away with a flicker of his hand and Albert took note of this rudeness. He also noticed Vanessa's quick roll of her eyes at her father's behavior and surmised that the army man's daughter did not approve of this attitude either.

Carl, ever blunt and direct, got straight to the point with Albert. They talked quietly between bites of food about the progress of the deck, Albert repeating much of what he had told Vanessa while she had stood in her bathroom. Carl nodded with stern approval at the carpenter's answers and he, Albert, felt he was subjected to pedestrian interrogation. Occasionally Beatrice would nod or ask a polite, quiet question, but the conversation was mostly between the two men. Vanessa seemed oblivious to the chatter and consumed her food like an impoverished man.

The subject steered into other directions, as they often do, and the topic shed light upon the fact that Vanessa was a cheerleader at her high school. Albert's ears couldn't help but perk up at this tidbit of information. He remembered when he was in high school that the dancers on the squad were always the most attractive with the best bodies; this unattainable preference of his followed him into his adulthood, if only to his fantasies.

"By the way, Dad," Vanessa chirped, "Melanie is coming over tomorrow after practice. I hope that's okay."

"Yes, that's fine honey," he said. "But you have to ask your mother, too."

"Mom?"

"Yes, that's fine with me too," Beatrice answered, seeming to fade into herself as she hovered shyly over her bowl of pasta.

Albert leaned back and drank the iced tea offered to him and watched Vanessa. She talked enthusiastically to the three of them about the gossip of the cheer squad: the girls in the group, the coach, the complexity of the some of the moves, and the simplicity of some of the others. This older man, his hair peppered with gray, admired the young woman's verve and vibrance; something that her parents lacked despite the great life that they lived. Vanessa seemed not jaded in the least, not by the material objects surrounding her, nor the angelic looks that Jesus had handed her with an open palm. Life was good for her, and she seemed to take note of it.

As she spoke, her arms occasionally flailing into the choreography of a cheer, Albert could not help but daydream about her as she spoke, her sweet candy voice fading into the background as he fantasized. He dreamt of the tiny uniform she wore as part of the squad - the pleated skirt billowing out as she kicked her slim leg up, the pom-poms she grasped in either hand shaking and tumbling in color, her full and youthful breasts bouncing with each jump beneath the flimsy top he imagined her wearing. He could feel his excitement growing in his blue jeans, the cream from his core oozing into his boxer shorts, surely staining them.

With clumsiness, he put his hand down on the table, inadvertently making one of the forks clatter to the hardwood floor. Albert scooped down and picked up the dirtied utensil. Carl called for one of the servants to bring him another fork, but Vanessa held her hand up and spoke deliberately.

"Don't bother her, Dad, I'll get it."

The adolescent breezed easily past Albert, seemingly taking with her an air of freshness and ripeness only as fresh and ripe as the orange wedges that sat upon the table. She was a beautiful, moist piece of fruit he so wanted to sink his teeth into. But he would have to wait, if, indeed, it was to happen at all.