We end up hanging around the house for most of the day. We look at paint and flooring on line but I don't physically make it out to the shops. Mainly we talk and talk about anything and everything. I feel so acutely aware of him and his presence actually changes me physically, I switch from hot to cold continuously, depending on how close he is to me and whether or not he is speaking, and sometimes it’s just simply watching him watching me, I can be mid-sentence and the fact that this man is listening so intently to what I’m saying, completely throws me and I lose all track of my words. I cannot believe I have slept in a bed with him for three nights and we still haven’t had sex, and that worries me a little, my horrible insecure self makes an appearance and forces the thought into my head that it’s because he doesn’t find me physically attractive but I try really hard to push thoughts like that aside. Gabriel eventually goes out to the supermarket and buys in some food and grog and because of waking at such a late hour; the day seems to have flown by. We cook dinner together, just a simple pasta and sauce. I’m feeling fairly relaxed and surprisingly, quite happy compared to when I first woke. Gabe’s iPhone is playing, the music system blasts the sound throughout the house and out to the deck and around to the pool area. We are both singing along to Silver chair’s Straight Lines as we cook.
The weather is unseasonably warm for the end of September so we eat out on the veranda and watch the sun go down over the bay. As we sit back and admire the view, sipping on a nicely chilled Sav Blanc, I unconsciously roll my shoulders. They still ache but I think it’s more because I'm starting to relax, not because I'm tense. It's surprising what a physical effect mental stress can have on your body. I drink my wine and with Adele’s First Love playing over the speakers, I reflect... It’s been over a month since Jason and I had managed a civil word to each other. When it was good between us, it was really good. That was the last time I had sex with Jay, it was the last time I had had sex with anyone, even myself. That evening, Jay had cooked us a couple of steaks on the barbie and we had sat looking out over our own pool, drinking beer and discussing taking a trip away in October. My husband, at forty nine, is still fit, toned, tall, dark and very handsome, he has turned heads all of our married life and until recently, my desire for him had been as strong as it had ever been. My thoughts turn back to the last time we had sex. We had gone to bed that night and made slow beautiful love, he knew my body inside out and knew exactly what turned me on, the only issues we had ever had in the bedroom were when the boys were young and I was often too tired for sex, although just lately we have had issues too, now I understand why. My husband has been fucking someone else. I thought he had just gone off me, which, I suppose he has, otherwise, why else would he be dipping his wick elsewhere?
I had tried to spice things up in the bedroom. Having a lot more time on my hands nowadays, what with the boys being grown up and moved out and me working much less. I had read a lot of books and many of them had been erotic love stories. I had found them quiet liberating. I have always been a bit slow at being the instigator of sex in our relationship, mainly due to a lack of confidence and a fear of rejection, both issues caused by Jason. Over the years he has thought it funny to knock me back on the rare occasions I had been the one coming on to him first, he just had a way of making one little comment that would make me wish the ground would open up and swallow me whole. He had watched me give birth to two children but he still had the ability to embarrass and affect me in this way and his usual response was along the lines of “What, what did I say? Oh come on, it was a joke, come here stupid”
But when you’re standing there in killer heels, stockings and a Basque and your husband says…
“Yeah..... Twenty years ago... Maybe” The damage is done. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't married to a monster. That was just his sense of humour. Warped!
Gabriel leans forward and tops up my glass, bringing me back to the now. How things have changed in just the space of a month, a week. A weekend even.
“Let’s get in the spa; it will do your bones the world of good”
“The spa? I have nothing to wear in the spa”
Shit, I can think of nothing I would like more than to sit in the spa right now and enjoy the warmth, the bubbles and him, beside me, maybe talking a little Italian. He looks across at me over the top of his glass with a sexy arsed gleam in his eye and shrugs
“So wear nothing” He tilts his head to one side and gives me THAT smile
“You’re beautiful Lauren, there is no one else here, and we aren't over looked, what's the problem?”
“Ohhhh Gabriel, have you ever dated an older woman?” His face falters and something passes through his mind, I just know it but it’s gone in a second
“What has that got to do with anything?”