You're Always in My Thoughts

Gemma knew that it was crazy, to feel the way that she did, when it was she who had broken off their affair some two years ago. Stan had not pursued her, as he had once done, and when she had used a torrid affair with him, twice, in order for her to conceive and make real her hopes for motherhood. She had lived a lie, with her husband Jake, but her conscience had eased over the years since those dissolute and reckless times. Stan had given her space to do that. To now see how he was with Betty, his devoted wife, reassured her that their secret was safe. The passionate man that she looked at now, and had known of so tempestuously, did not play around.

She had known that his startling offer to be of help had been transformed into an altogether different emotional, and only too physical, bond that she too could not get enough of. But pushing her luck and failing to quell her lust for him, and he for her, would have brought their carefully constructed world come crashing down.

Now, as she looked at him fooling around with the kids in the garden, she knew that she was living a lie. The sight of the man, her father-in-law, with his greying hair and clipped beard, strong tanned arms and chest that his short-sleeved denim shirt failed to conceal from her sight, made her wonder how he kept the years at bay, or their effects upon him. He was agile, scooted around in his deck shoes and chinos and, as always, seemed to behave as a big brother rather than a devoted grandfather.

Just as it was for her, it was an act that concealed a deeper secret, a gift that kept her special love for him so very much alive. It only needed a look, or a moment's touch of his hand, a parting kiss to her cheeks that lingered a split-second longer, that informed her of what could so easily be at work in him once more. She saw it in his grey-blue eyes, on the pout of his lips that had grazed her body so wonderfully and had claimed her in places that had her crying out his name as they loved. It had been at such moments, of passionate and tempestuous loving, that she knew Stan found something more to please him when he was with her.

Forbidden love brought inventiveness and a raging need to live it all out so differently from ordered ways. There were times when it felt as if he was always in her thoughts. She knew again that she wanted them to be made ragingly real, felt the sharp gnaw of longing for the man as she saw him saunter over the slabbed patio and come into her kitchen, his bulk filling the doorway.

'Need some help carrying those out?'

His deep voice matched the sight of the strong man that he was, someone uninhibited when it came to expressing his attachment to her.

'Yes, in a moment,' she smiled on meeting his appraising look upon her, placing the jug of tropical fruit juice, and glasses. on the tray. She had been working on it as she watched and thought of him, the others in the lunch party, her closest friends Alan and Susie, busily engaged in chatting with Betty and Jake. 'I haven't said this in a long time, but...but I need you to do me a favour.'

Susie was going through the same roller-coaster ride as she had done, but to share with her the secret, of solving it, would be a step too far. The question, on what to do, would have to come from Susie. The answer to it, or another perspective, would not be volunteered so easily.

Gemma felt his touch to her hip, under her floaty blouse, as Stan drew closer, his caress going unseen as they stood by the worktop set under the window that looked out onto the garden.

'I'm here for you, you know that, even after so long and not being together. I miss those times...'

The sight of her tempted him often enough. Gemma had regained her slender beauty, the ravages of carrying, bearing, and then nursing kids having been exercised away. The set of her full lips could so quickly be transformed into a captivating smile, her russet blonde hair long and rebellious. His Betty had even gone so far as to offer advice on what to do, and the results were there for him to now look at and appreciate all over again, just as he had done some years ago and when the subject of him being a 'donor' had first been raised, much to her surprise and dread of discovery. 'Keeping it in the family' had been the explanation given for his offer to help her.

'It's crazy, it's a crazy need that I have for you. Just looking at the kids reminds me of what happened...all of the time.'

'And seeing me here with them only makes that worse?' he retorted in his direct ways of it.

'No, or not in the way that you mean!' Gemma made them step out of view and soon kissed him. She shivered on feeling Stan's questing caresses upon her skin. She loved his touch on her body, how Stan cupped her breasts in his large hands as he felt their weight, the slow brush of his thumbs over her nipples making them achingly firm and proud against the fabric of her dress. She felt the rush of longing in her belly and squirmed free of his claims. 'You now know how it is again for me!'

He did not react to her moment's anger. 'The fire still burns in each of us, so we could meet and deal with the heat?' he murmured and not seeking to detain her, but the intent behind the stilled look of his eyes only too clear.

'Yes, it still burns, so be with me again and make it soon!' Gemma whispered, darting a glance his way. before stepping nimbly out of his reach. She had heard Susie call to her now sought to gather her thoughts, brushed down the skirt of her dress that his claims upon her had drawn up so that he could touch her thighs. Hunger for the man would go unrequited. 'Take the tray out for me, please? We can have lunch now,..it's almost ready. I'll text you, in our old ways and we can go from there, you...you darling man.'

On halting breaths she had whispered out her confession before Susie could hear it or see how they were together. A fleeting moment of shared intimacy would have to suffice. She saw Susie smile at him in her winning ways as they brushed past each other in the doorway.

Gemma waited until they were alone. 'Sorry, Sue...I got distracted.'

'I can see why,' Susie smiled and giving her a knowing look. 'He looks all man and Betty clings to him as if she's just met him...'

Her friend came to stand by her side and the two of them watched Stan walk to the table that was laid out for their lunch, the parasols snapping on the light breeze. So much had been done to the garden, by Stan's capable hands and knowledge of such things, to transform it over the years she and Jake had lived here.

'They're close and always have been, Jake tells me,' Gemma replied somewhat woodenly but seeing what Sue meant. 'He loves the kids so...'

'And he talked of what a good Mum you are and the problems you had in making it happen. It affected all of you in the family, so he said. You kept on trying.'

'Yeah,' she sighed. 'Until it happened for me it had become an obsession. Did he tell you that too?' She wondered on what had provoked Stan to even speak of it, seemingly unprompted.

'No,' Sue answered startled by her friend's vehement reply. 'It's gotten to be that way for me too, one failure after another and with no end in sight.'

'I'm sorry...' Gemma had heard a hitch in Sue's voice, even as she saw Stan gather up the children effortlessly and bring them to their places at the table.

'I'm having no luck, if that's the word for what I'm going through with Alan. Can we talk about it, again, some time when there aren't so many around?'

'Yeah, sure we can,' Gemma answered uncertainly and held Sue's look. 'You probably saw the story in the papers, or on the web, of how some women will do anything to make it happen and then you try and forget what you did.'

Susie paused for a moment in giving her answer to that.

'I wouldn't forget if someone special, that I'd chosen to help me make that happen, how could I? You wouldn't either, would you?'

'No, now let's have lunch...' Gemma smiled, the sudden fear of whether she had said to much not to be seen in her eyes, she hoped.

'You'd better drive us home, I've had a skinful,' Alan had asked her.

Even as she did so, Susie wondered if that was such a good idea after all that she had talked about with Gemma. More to the point she'd taken to putting two and two together on seeing her ways with Stan, discreet as it was and more revealingly, perhaps, how he was with Gemma's kids. It was crazy, but she had taken to wondering about her friends' problems in having them and what Gem may have alluded to, albeit in a roundabout sort of way.

'Some women will do anything to make it happen and then you try and forget what you did.'

It suggested what others might resort to and what Gemma may have done. From the mechanical ways some favoured there was the flipside, the finding of a complicit donor; one you knew and continued to love for what had been achieved, together, but to do so risking wider family bonds to breaking point. Finding someone like that simply hadn't entered her mind, but if Gem had pursued those ways and taken Stan as her lover or a donor, then she looked well on it. But how did you live with the memories? Was that what she had seen in a moment's distracted look, that Gem had given her, after Stan had left them to talk?

She and Alan had agreed that they would try the conventional donor route, anonymity being key to many women, but she could imagine the hold that Stan might have on her friend. Theirs was not a remote association. The strong and good-looking man that she'd met remained so involved, and Gemma would want that. She'd feel bound to him in ways that Jake could never quite reach, but she had been told that Jake filled the role well enough, even if his surprise with how it had suddenly happened after so many failed efforts, natural and mechanically artificial, had failed. You didn't always see what was there staring at you, and she certainly had begun to wonder on it, all the more, after seeing Stan with the youngsters and then, how Gemma had been with her.

Could, what Gemma had found, be brought to her too?

She sensed Alan look her way, then felt the slow slide of his fingers over her thigh as he pulled up the hem of her floaty, summer dress, its multi-coloured squared pattern something that had caught Stan's attention also. She'd not seen him and Betty for ages, but they got along, and Alan had asked Stan to price for some work that needed doing at their place, work very similar to what she had heard Stan had completed so well for her friends.

'You'll see what your money gets you,' Stan had answered them in his direct ways of it when the scope of the works had been spoken of. 'I did the same for Gemma and Jake.'

What else had he gone and done, and for Gemma in particular by way of satisfying a wayward urge for his daughter in law and in doing so making her wish to have a family become only too real?

'Wait until we're home!' she laughed softly, squirming out of his way, as Alan's fingers pressed into her slit after she had moved her hips off the seat to meet them, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter.

'I thought I'd get you in the mood. You can be a bit slow sometimes.' He had relented and simply kept his hand to the soft skin of her thighs, did that in slow sweeps.

'Really?' she scoffed even as her breaths became sharper and his fingers worked into her again. Thoughts of Stan pegging her friend, what the results of those sessions may have been, made her wet in anticipation of what would happen when they got home. 'Just make it happen for me...somehow, Alan! I want to make it happen anyway we can and being slow isn't one of them!'

'Don't I just know it sometimes!'

She wouldn't be slow when they got home. Thoughts of another man finding her and making her dream a reality had taken a wayward hold. Gemma looked so good, happy and beautiful on it now. The same could happen for her and, perhaps, just the thought of being impregnated by another man might make the action with Alan really fly every time they did it.

Some took to porn films and toys to wind the clock; she'd think of another man who had, or may have, done it for her friend.

'I love that smile on your lips, it shows me that you've been loved again as you wanted,' Stan said looking admiringly at her naked body, his hands stroking her thighs and tugging at the hair that marked her cleft. Gemma squirmed in response to his renewed touches and the insistent press of his tongue tip, its rhythmic touches beguiling and wrecking her restraint.

He knelt by her shoulders as he kissed and caressed her cleft once more, his flickering tongue slicking over it and tasting her. Stan moved to kiss her so she could taste what had been so lustfully shared, his fingers offering languid slow caresses over her body. She lifted her head from the pillow and twisted so that she could press her lips to his length, to brush her fingernails over slicked skin. His lips soon tugged on her hard nipples as Stan's fingers found her, then his tongue as he slicked over them, then into her.

'Don't start me off again, Stan, you darling man. I can't get enough of your ways. I know that we'll have to resist doing this again. Being with you like this is enough. You're in my thoughts...I can't clear them away...but I know that, somehow. I have to do that. You've had me, my body, as only you can.'

She'd been reckless on her day off and with the kids being minded. She'd become lost on seeing Stan strip off his clothes and stand before her in slim briefs, a penis pouch making her gawp all over again at what he brought to any woman. She had soon known again what she craved; the ache of longing dragging at her control not to take the lead but to persuade him to make the first move.

'It's how we agreed it would have to be. Some call it sharing in a feast after the famine, the feast you and I both want, but that's so different from what we find with those we'd wreck by doing this.'

He said it tersely and knelt by her side once more. They had been over this a dozen times, a strained loyalty to others always cutting in to what they sought from moments such as these and that had been tempestuously re-discovered.

'I'm selfish, have been selfish,' she answered in a small voice. Her accomplished lover brought so much to her and being with him only aroused the memories of what she had discovered with him and could not get enough of. Loving, as they had done, only made the bond seem the stronger. Words, and being in each other's company when Betty and Jake were about, were never enough.

'The same could be said of me.'

Stan moved from the bed, and she took in the look of him, Stan's bearded face, his hairy body and that rod of flesh that sprang out from a mat of coarse greying hair at his groin. He had filled and stretched her,; his tempestuous ways revealing his lust to be with her again; the rushes that she felt him expel into her a sure sign that he remained ragingly virile.

She contrasted the family man who doted on his grandchildren, as everyone thought them to be, with the undoubtedly lustful and uninhibited man who had broken down her reserve and claimed her. Stan had persuaded her to think of it differently, him being a donor in the most passionate of ways. He had bedded her with her complicity until her conscience had gotten the better of her and their affair had withered away. A different bond had evolved, but under the surface she knew that other emotions were at work in him, and she had realised that they had again taken a hold in her and to which there again seemed to have been only one answer.

'You lusted after me and no more?' she challenged, her lips trembling on having to speak of it in this way.

'That's unfair, Gem, you know it is. I also reckoned on it having to matter, what we felt for each other helping to make it happen...what you wanted from it, and from me of all people.' He looked at his chunky watch, strapped so tight to his thick wrist. 'I've got to leave you, but shower with me first?'

She slipped from the bed and rushed to be in his arms. Lifted against him, Gemma soon wrapped her legs about his waist and was carried into the shower, the water soon turned on and cascading over them.

'Whatever you do when you're away from me, what we have is special! No one takes that from us!' she cried out as his fingers opened the way and she soon felt him enter, his hands digging into her buttocks as she was made to rise and fall on him. Stan filled her as a frenzied, parting, rut was pursued under the cascade of water that slicked their skins, their snorted kisses of effort in harmony with what they each sought.

Gemma closed her mind to what Stan might yet be asked to do for Susie when he did some work at their house. She would have no persuasive power to prevent that from happening, if it went so far. Susie might have been saying things just to get at the truth of what lay behind her pregnancies after the difficulties she and Jake had gone through. She had rung and disclosed the pretext for him being at her house, much as it had been for her so long ago.

'I've had enough of 'do it yourself' and Stan's agreed to do what I asked. He'll be over here to fix the kitchen lights and deal with other odd jobs, perhaps so much more,' Susie had announced, her usually soft and modulated voice having a sharper edge to it, and what she had been told not provoking her to give an answer to. 'Alan's leaving it up to me., getting the house sorted that is.'

'He won't let you down...Stan won't do that.'

After all, her bond with Stan was thought to be so very distinct, the bonds of family keeping them close and frequently in each other's company. If Stan's vanity prevailed he'd peg Susie, like a farmer might call in a stud bull, and drift out of her friend's life once more. Susie had disclosed, along the way of past conversations on the subject, that she and Alan had no wish to know the identity of any donor who might make their hopes become a reality.

'Life could get complicated if I don't find a way through, and soon,' Susie had admitted before their call was finished.

'When doesn't it when it concerns our men? It's always us women who have to pick up the pieces.'

Susie wondered about him as she heard Stan working in the roof space and fitting the lights Alan wanted. The extra storage would be useful, along with the loft-ladder and hinged hatchway. Stan had suggested that it would make access easier. She wondered, if only for a moment, why it hadn't been thought of before, but there were other things on her mind and made ragingly real on seeing him again, his beard now gone, and his lean face marked by a greying stubble.

'It's somewhere to stow away your stuff, and also what any kids you may have want to keep,' he said.

'Having them is getting to be a problem...'

'There's a way through...'

His smile relaxed her, and she was glad to have changed into looser clothes, once Alan had gone. She was on the pull for the man dressed in chinos and a navy blue button-down collared shirt that hung loose, the sleeves short and gripping his biceps. A white baseball cap had been doffed in greeting her, but he had soon put that back on, back to front as younger guys did. It made him look relaxed and, for an older guy, attractive, even desirable.

'You look as if you're going out,' he'd said on arrival, 'so I can pull the front door shut when I'm through, can't I?'

'That's not part of my day,' she had answered the man who was a class act with the ability to make her feel special. She had seen it in Gemma's eyes too, when the two of them had been together, at that family lunch and her hopes had begun to fly free.