A Touch of Heaven Read online

  I choke up, and we sit in silence for a few moments. But I regain composure from the slow, rhythmic circling of Patrick’s thumb against the pulse point in my wrist.

  “I loved him, and he was a lovely man, but he’d have been the first to say I should remarry and be happy again. So I did, and I thought I was. Well, I was happy, for a while.”

  Isn’t life weird? Here I am, telling all my woes to a beautiful, naked and very young man. He’s probably younger than the man who caused the woes and infinitely better looking.

  “Steve, my second husband was quite a bit younger than me. We met through a dating web site. Sort of by mistake, when the search parameters were off. But we decided to give it a whirl anyway.” I squelch the what-if game. No use forever dwelling on bad choices. “We were great at first, and I was besotted with him because he was young and handsome and good in-”

  Oh God, I’m red in the face again. What is it about Patrick that makes me want to tell him every detail? Sex and all…

  “He was a good lover?”

  “Yes. He was. And I loved him.” There were good days, and I miss them. I miss the sex. But mostly, I miss having someone to love.

  He reaches up, brushes my hair behind my ears, obliquely urging me to go on, but in a way that allows me not to, if I don’t want.

  “But it didn’t last long. I went into a bad patch with my arthritis. I didn’t want to go out as much, or spend money, or have a good time.” I straighten my spine, angry suddenly, my ire mostly aimed at myself for being so gullible. “And he met someone else. A younger woman, who also had a bit of money…” my jaw locks, but I force it out “…they’d been fucking for months when I finally found out and asked him to leave.”

  As the words leave my lips, I experience the most peculiar phenomenon. It’s like a rushing wind on a still day, a whirl of something around us, furious and wild, my anger expressed as an external force.

  And yet the empty crisp bags remain motionless and the trees and the stems of the flowers are totally still.

  I look into Patrick’s eyes and they’re an inferno of blue, incandescent.

  “The man was an idiot. He was a fool to give up a woman like you.”

  Does he mean it? How can he mean it? He’s no idea what kind of a woman I am.

  “You mean a gullible middle-aged widow with a bit of money?” I blurt out, not really thinking, just letting rip with my fears and pain.

  The bizarre impression of a wind whirls up again, and Patrick’s eyes are searing. For a second his gentle fingers grip hard, tense and almost painful.

  “No, I mean a beautiful and gracious woman with a pure heart.”

  I laugh out loud again. He’s preposterous and crazy. A total stranger, potentially dangerous, but still irresistible.

  “Thank you, Patrick. You’re an angel. But I’m not pure. No way. I’m selfish and I’m always having horrible thoughts about people.”

  The whirlwind has died, and his blue eyes are calm again, but Patrick’s laughing too. We both chortle like loons, because this is all so absurd. I’m debating my moral fiber with a naked man I met about twenty minutes ago, and whose last name I don’t even know. Hell, I’m also beginning to wonder if he’s a squatter. Surely the Johnsons would have mentioned if they were employing somebody to house-sit?

  When we settle down, he’s still holding my hand, still looking into my eyes. His are filled with an expression of wonder. “Your young husband wronged you, and yet inside you feel no true ill will. You still wish the best for him, despite everything.”

  “How the hell do you know these things?” I try to tug my hand away, but he holds on, gentle yet firm. I’m shaking like a leaf, because he is right in a way. I don’t want horrible things to happen to Steve, even now. He did make me happy for a while, and I can’t deny that he tried his best. He just fell into temptation. God, nobody’s perfect.

  Except perhaps…

  “Call it intuition,” murmurs the perfect one softly. There’s a psychic wind blowing again suddenly, but it’s not anger or fear. Instead, it’s something far more primal and pleasurable.

  “So, then, what’s your intuition telling you now?” My heart thuds and my ridiculous hormones cry game on.

  “That you’re nervous and tense and you need to relax.”

  I am those things, but the twinkle in Patrick’s eyes suggests a means to an end.

  My body feels twinkly too. I’m nervous, but in a good way now. I’m a fine one, calling this beautiful man crazy. I’m the crazy one, because something tells me Patrick might be a far greater risk than falling for Steve ever was. “So what do you prescribe for that?”

  “A massage.” He nods sagely then glances around the garden. “But in the shade to protect your lovely fair skin.”

  “Um, yes.” Doubts gather. I don’t know him. He could be an axe murderer, a thief or a sex offender. Should I play safe? “Look…I…I think I’ll go inside, you know… It’s been nice chatting and all that.” I scrabble to my feet, but as I do, another twinge of pain makes me falter. In the blink of an eye, perhaps faster, Patrick’s up and supporting me, his hand beneath my elbow.

  “Don’t go. Please.” His blue eyes implore me. It’s not Steve-style wheedling and pleading. There’s nobility in Patrick’s expression, and a sense of genuine sorrow. It knocks me sideways because it’s intense and unfeigned, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. “You’re safe with me, Miranda. I’ll never harm you. I couldn’t.”

  I believe him, and my heart suddenly flies. “Okay then…maybe a massage would be nice. Have you any experience?”

  His smile is sweet and slow. “Yes, indeed. The laying on of hands is one of my specialties.”

  Did he mean that in a naughty way…or was it something else? It’s hard to tell. His eyes are sparkling again. I can’t put my finger on it, but I’ve a feeling there’s more to it. Something a bit beyond my comprehension. I ought to worry, but I decide I don’t want to at the moment.

  We decamp to a spot beneath the old oak tree, and as Patrick lays out the rug, I look around, pondering. My neighbors aren’t great gardeners, and mowing the lawn a bit is about the extent of their green thumbs. They usually only have a few scrappy flowers and shrubs that don’t do very well, and yet now everything’s suddenly bright and blooming, full of color and fecundity. I glance at Patrick, with his magnificent, smooth young body that has a special bloom all of its own, and I wonder.

  Stop it. You’re going mental, woman. Stop having weird thoughts and just enjoy the moment.

  “You should undress,” he announces calmly, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world.

  I smile nervously, but to my astonishment, my fingers take on a life of their own and follow his suggestion. First goes my wrap, and then, bloody hell, my very modest and quite covered up bikini. I’m scared and trembling and embarrassed, but I just keep on peeling off clothing. I can’t even do the old Venus on a half-shell thing and attempt to cover my breasts and my sex. My hands just won’t seem to go there.

  So I stand, on display, before Patrick’s youth and splendor.

  My body isn’t bad. I try to keep as fit as I can, all things considered, but I’ve got qualms aplenty.

  And yet his eyes are warm and appreciative. There’s nothing salacious or prurient in the way he assesses me, just an admiration that’s sweet and encouraging.

  My spirits soar, and I’m almost disappointed when he helps me down onto the blanket and much of me is covered again. I adjust my position once or twice in what must be a subconscious attempt to get him to notice my plump, but not too shabbily shaped bottom.

  He likes me-I think. In fact, unless I’m mistaken, he actually fancies me.

  The idea of it whirls in my brain and my bloodstream as I hear him sink to his knees beside me, and feel the faint displacement of air across my skin. It’s as if my senses are tuning up like an orchestra. I can hear his breathing, a soft, even counterpoint to the hum of insects in the air and the rustling of the branch
es above us. I can smell the summer flowers in the garden, and yet through that there’s also the clear, delicious odor of Patrick’s body. He smells clean, and also of some faint exotic perfume, vaguely Eastern, all rounded out with a hint of fresh sun-drenched sweat as an earthy finish. Just a nose-full of him is like swigging down a bottle of vintage champagne.

  And touch. Oh, oh God, touch. His fingertips settle on my shoulder blades like ten little kisses from a cherub.

  “Relax,” he whispers, and those warm, sensitive fingers begin to move.

  At first it’s all bona fide massage. No funny business. He works quite lightly, the contact circumspect, gliding lightly over the muscles of my upper back and shoulders. I’ve had plenty of massages in my time, some from beauty therapists, some from physiotherapists, but never anything in circumstances quite like this. Patrick’s touch is like heat sliding over me, but more, so much more. It radiates from the point of skin-on-skin and flows throughout my body.

  And as he strokes and nurtures and coddles me, he sings. And that’s not like anything else I’ve encountered anywhere either. His voice is soft and mellifluous, but there’s no recognizable tune or even proper words. It’s more akin to the joyous calls of the garden birds, and it seems to melt into his touch like an extra glow.

  I do relax. I melt. I float. And before long I start to purr like a contented cat being fussed over. I’ve never felt so loose and at ease, and yet at the same time I’m a dynamo of excitement. Waves of well-being surge around my body, bouncing from the crown of my head to my toes, and always doubling back again, and again, to my breasts and my sex.

  It’s soon impossible to keep still. I squirm slowly against the blanket, rumpling it up, rubbing my breasts and my pussy against the solid earth beneath me.

  Patrick hasn’t even touched me in an intimate way yet, but I know in every fiber that he wants to. In silent invitation, I part my legs, waiting and hoping.

  He inclines over me, his lips against the side of my face, still softly singing, his breath wafting against my skin as he tucks my hair behind my ear. He settles his lips against my eyebrow, then the arc of my cheekbone, then the corner of my mouth. Then he lets them stray down over my jaw and the slope of my throat. His hands move too. He slips one like silk along the indentation of my waist and over my hip and then the curve of my buttock, while sliding the other beneath me to cup my breast.

  Oh boy.

  His knees brush against my thigh where he’s angled against me. If I just flexed my fingers a little I could reach out and stroke his penis. The message flies from my brain down to my hand, but before I can act, he’s fondling my breast, his fingers riffing to and fro over my nipple. It’s a delicate caress, not gross or greedy, a pleasure that’s about me, all about me.

  “Oh please,” I moan, not entirely sure what I’m begging for. Is it more of his touch? Or maybe his kindness? His warmth? I’m not even sure that I really want him to fuck me… Well, at least not yet.

  He plays with my breast, still gently murmuring in my ear, his voice low now, but still musical, almost a coo of encouragement as he moves on, seeking the centre of my pleasure. Drifting, still moving my hips around, I try to imagine the sight of us-me, prone on the blanket, him over me, curved and protecting, his head close to mine as he touches me.

  The air around us is latent, magical, and as I shift uneasily, lifting my hips to let him at me, I feel the waft of a sudden breeze blowing around us. It feels close, not part of the garden, but instead a strange micro-system that affects only Patrick and I. Weird notions flit through my brain then fly off out again as he finds my clitoris and begins to rub.

  Shivers of intense pleasure ripple instantaneously from the point of contact. I never realized I was quite so stirred, so aroused. My legs kick against the blanket, my toes catch at it, and my knuckles brush momentarily against Patrick’s penis, so thick and warm. I try to clasp him, but he adjusts his position, improving the angle of his wrist to better pleasure me. A tiny plume of disappointment spikes, but he kisses my neck, murmuring something in a language I don’t recognize, the words against my skin. Suddenly it doesn’t seem so important to touch him as long as he’s still touching me.

  I don’t know what he’s saying, but I know, still, that it’s all about me.

  He circles his fingertip and sends it flicking, swooping and dipping deep into my cleft for more fluid, before returning it to my clit. He’s relentless, sweetly giving and unbearably accurate. Denied the gift of an orgasm at another’s hand so long, I sob and cry and buck up from the earth beneath me when it arrives, given by Patrick.

  Deep, hard, wrenching waves of pleasure break through my sex and my belly, and then wash up against my heart and mind and soul. My brain goes white with ecstasy and the strange wind around us rises and billows.

  The last thing I remember before it all becomes too much is a dual volley of peculiar sharp sounds, like a pair of sheets on a line, flapping in a gale, and then the sensation of Patrick’s arms around me and the two of us floating upwards.

  Chapter Two

  It’s hard to wake up. I’m in the middle of a dream about flying, but whether I’m a bird, in a hang-glider or whether I’m just Superwoman, it’s hard to tell. I’m simply wafting, up, up, upwards, above my own garden.

  My eyes snap open, and I’m awake. But something’s strange. Judging by the angle of a shaft of sunlight on the bedroom wall, it’s some time during the morning. And the last thing I remember was afternoon…and Patrick.

  Ouch.

  When I shoot up into a sitting position, the first thing I notice after a sharp twinge of pain in my hips is that I’m naked. The second is that I’ve been lying on top of the duvet, snuggled up in a pair of comforters that I usually keep folded over the bottom of the bed for cooler nights.

  What the hell’s happened to me in the last twelve to eighteen hours?

  Where’s Patrick?

  That last question seems to be the most important. In my mind, I suddenly see him and start to blush.

  How could I have let him touch me like that? What the hell was I thinking? I talk to the guy for the first time ever one minute, and the next I’m letting him touch me and make me come. Sometimes I really am too stupid to be alive.

  Fishing around for my robe, I monitor my body. There are the usual twinges and aches here and there, but nothing too serious. In fact, I feel better than I have done for a long time. It must be the massage. Despite everything, I have to laugh. Illicit orgasms sure beat ibuprofen and heat wraps any time.

  Down in the garden, there’s no sign of my mysterious therapist, and I’m disappointed, despite the potential for embarrassment at our next meeting. There’s no blanket, no picnic detritus and no Patrick. The garden looks strangely empty and cold despite the sunshine, and even the plants and flowers look more bedraggled than they did yesterday. When we were talking, and touching, everything down there seemed lush and juicy, almost technicolor, and now it all looks ordinary again.

  Because Patrick’s not there, the garden doesn’t attract me this morning, and turning to the bed, I frown, still wondering how I got here. My stomach grumbles and it dawns on me I’m starving.

  What the hell happened to me? Did I pass out from pleasure or something? Did Patrick carry me up the stairs and tuck my fleeces around me and leave me to sleep it off? It’s all a mystery, a blank spot, completely weird.

  A glance at the clock sets a fire under me. Shit, I’m supposed to be working at the charity shop this morning, and I’ve only got around an hour to shower and dress and get halfway across town. Looks like I’ll be in the car today. I usually walk, but at my pace I’ll never get there in time to open up.

  But first breakfast, and lots of it. My appetite is enormous, and my body feels well and full of zest, despite its problems. I guess that’s what happens when you’re well and truly pleasured.

  By the time I return from my stint at the charity shop, and from running errands for one or two old neighbors in the avenue, it’s
well after lunchtime and I’m starving again. It’s been a hectic morning and also still confusing.

  I still can’t remember quite what happened yesterday, and I’m more puzzled than ever about the beautiful man who touched me so exquisitely. None of my neighbors ever seem to have seen him, nor were they aware the house next door to me was occupied.

  I make a meal and eat in the kitchen, staring out across the back lawn, looking for my beautiful enigma. The house and garden across the dwarf hedge look desolate, uninhabited, and as I consume my omelet and salad without a great deal of enthusiasm, I begin to wonder if what happened yesterday was just a dream. A fantasy conjured by a middle-aged woman who’s finally ready for sex again after a period of sensual drought.

  Frustration, that’s it. I look out over the garden and scowl at the rain that’s just started to fall. I’m horny, and somehow, I got sucked in deep by a really vivid daydream. I imagined an idealized man and then masturbated myself into a stupor, dreaming about him.

  Possibly.

  The trouble is I sincerely wish he was real, even if he is mysterious and dangerous. And as is my wont, a bit too young for me into the bargain.

  The rain is heavier now and the drone of it weighs me down. I don’t know what to do with my afternoon, and none of my usual pastimes appeal to me. Television seems boring. Reading-can’t summon interest in my book. Going online and seeing who’s chatting on various social media sites-well, that all seems trivial, more unreal than my crazy fantasies and not nearly as much fun. I decide on a shower first, and then lie on my bed in hopes of a nap, listening to the raindrops pattering on my balcony through the open patio doors.

  Pretty soon I’m drifting along the hinterland of sleep and hello, hello, Patrick comes a calling in my daydream, just as I’d hoped he might.

  We’re on the blanket together again, beneath the tree down there, and he’s kissing me, his beautiful naked body pressed close to mine. His hands rove over me, and mine over him, and at last I get a chance to stroke his penis.