Chapter 11 My own stupid fault
I suppose I went numb for a while. I kept myself busy keeping Paul on the rails as he had been absolutely devastated by her death. I found out he couldn’t cook, had no idea on how to operate a washing machine or even a vacuum cleaner, she had done absolutely everything for him. I stepped into her shoes, trying to fight off the depression I had become familiar with after my mother’s death. A couple of times he hugged me, which was comforting but when after a couple of months, he tried to kiss me I pushed him away. I then realised he had taken it for granted that I would replace her in his life and move in with him. This was out of the question, apart from the affection I felt during the post coital glow I didn’t really find him an attractive personality, I also felt bound by my promise to Valerie that I would not go with him without her there. So I gradually withdrew from his life. I eventually stopped being his stand-in housewife.
We remained on friendly turns and although I never visited next door again he did occasionally come to me at a weekend and we would talk about Valerie over a cup of tea. He told me that he couldn’t concentrate at work, and would spend his evenings in tears. He just talked and talked, it was all a one-way street, I rarely had a chance to explain how I felt. It was as if he was unloading his grief onto me. I felt really sorry for him and let him hold my hand when he occasionally burst into tears. After about six months he started to talk about making contact with their sex group, as if he was really asking my permission. I told him I didn’t think Val would mind; she wouldn’t want him to be unhappy. A few weeks later he was really down, he had gone to one of their scheduled parties but had been asked to leave. As a single man he was no longer welcome. I quickly told him that all that sort of thing was behind me now, just in case he got any ideas of using me as an entrance ticket.
One Sunday morning he came round for a chat, and produced Val’s little camera, Those first photographs that Val had taken of me were still on it. He sat next to me and showed me the photos on the little screen. They were all there, the one in the garden with me bending over revealing my breasts as my dressing gown fell open, all blurry and out of focus, and the ones she had taken indoors when we were both drunk on gin and tonic which led to our first fumbling attempts at love making. He said he often looked at them. I realised he was using them to masturbate, it was a strange feeling knowing that, but I felt it was fine if it brought him some comfort. I had myself had tried to masturbate on a couple occasions but it wasn’t really happening and actually made things worse, if it worked for him that was good news.
A few weeks later he had the camera again, and asked if he could take some photos of me as a remembrance of that first time with Val. I was really in a strange mental state, I had been toying with the idea of letting him use me from time to time instead of the photos. In truth I really missed the warmth of another person’s body against mine and Val had told me that men get ill without regular sex. Instead of telling ‘No’, I said I would think about it. I thought if he had fresh photos of me to masturbate with it would take some of the pressure off me to let him inside me. I dropped a note through his door telling him to bring the camera round next Saturday afternoon.
Come Saturday, I made no special effort to prepare for him. I looked at myself naked in my long mirror, I had lost about half a stone and looked like a sad skinny old lady. I was going to cancel but eventually I showered, but just gave my hair a perfunctory brush and didn’t use any makeup. For some reason I dressed in my winter vest and knickers and a dowdy long sweater dress, I suppose I was trying to make myself look as unattractive as possible. When he arrived, he said I looked lovely, I thought ‘you would say that wouldn’t you’ and almost asked him to leave. He asked if I still had the dressing gown I had worn on that day, so I went upstairs to find it, he followed me and sat on the top of the stairs chatting as I changed. I realised the dressing gown was in the other bedroom and half naked I darted into there to fetch it, I didn’t notice him sneak a photo of me in my sexy vest.
He asked if he could take a photo from my garden pressing my body against the glass of the French windows. I hate this photo more than I do the rest of those he took that awful afternoon. My heart wasn’t in it, I look tired and skinny and not at all happy.
He seemed happy enough snapping away. I wasn’t going to include these, but they are part of the story and they illustrated how I could be easily used. The last photo he took had me sitting on the edge of my bed with my thighs spread and my little vulva centre stage.
After he took this shot, he pushed me backwards on the bed and put my ankles wide apart on his shoulders and started fumbling with his trouser belt. I knew I didn’t want this. I went ice cold but remained calm. I looked at him and very softly said ‘Paul, please don’t ***** me’. It was as if I had hit him with a brick. He let me go and kept saying ‘Sorry!’ over and over again. I just stared at him and eventually he left the room, I heard him run down the stairs and the front door close. I realised what a fool I had been to allow this situation, and then I pulled the bed covers over me and as the grief finally washed over me, I cried myself to sleep.
The next day an Interflora girl bought me a large bunch of roses with a printed note ‘Forgive me. Paul’. I threw them on the floor and stamped on them before throwing them in the garden waste bin. Two days later on returning from the shops I found a fat envelope on the door mat. It held a long letter from him with prints of the photos he had taken. I threw the whole lot, letter unread. Into the kitchen bin. Later that evening I changed my mind and rescued some of the photos from the potato peelings and tea leaves and I have kept them more or less as a warning to myself not to be stupid all the time.
I avoided all further contact with Paul. If his car was parked on his drive, I avoided going into the garden in case he saw me and came out, and when I walked to the shops I went the long way home to avoid walking past the front of his house. Eventually a ‘For Sale’ board was posted in his garden, and then he was gone. A young couple with a baby moved in and we soon became friends and nowadays the *********** calls me Aunty.
to be continued
We remained on friendly turns and although I never visited next door again he did occasionally come to me at a weekend and we would talk about Valerie over a cup of tea. He told me that he couldn’t concentrate at work, and would spend his evenings in tears. He just talked and talked, it was all a one-way street, I rarely had a chance to explain how I felt. It was as if he was unloading his grief onto me. I felt really sorry for him and let him hold my hand when he occasionally burst into tears. After about six months he started to talk about making contact with their sex group, as if he was really asking my permission. I told him I didn’t think Val would mind; she wouldn’t want him to be unhappy. A few weeks later he was really down, he had gone to one of their scheduled parties but had been asked to leave. As a single man he was no longer welcome. I quickly told him that all that sort of thing was behind me now, just in case he got any ideas of using me as an entrance ticket.
One Sunday morning he came round for a chat, and produced Val’s little camera, Those first photographs that Val had taken of me were still on it. He sat next to me and showed me the photos on the little screen. They were all there, the one in the garden with me bending over revealing my breasts as my dressing gown fell open, all blurry and out of focus, and the ones she had taken indoors when we were both drunk on gin and tonic which led to our first fumbling attempts at love making. He said he often looked at them. I realised he was using them to masturbate, it was a strange feeling knowing that, but I felt it was fine if it brought him some comfort. I had myself had tried to masturbate on a couple occasions but it wasn’t really happening and actually made things worse, if it worked for him that was good news.
A few weeks later he had the camera again, and asked if he could take some photos of me as a remembrance of that first time with Val. I was really in a strange mental state, I had been toying with the idea of letting him use me from time to time instead of the photos. In truth I really missed the warmth of another person’s body against mine and Val had told me that men get ill without regular sex. Instead of telling ‘No’, I said I would think about it. I thought if he had fresh photos of me to masturbate with it would take some of the pressure off me to let him inside me. I dropped a note through his door telling him to bring the camera round next Saturday afternoon.
Come Saturday, I made no special effort to prepare for him. I looked at myself naked in my long mirror, I had lost about half a stone and looked like a sad skinny old lady. I was going to cancel but eventually I showered, but just gave my hair a perfunctory brush and didn’t use any makeup. For some reason I dressed in my winter vest and knickers and a dowdy long sweater dress, I suppose I was trying to make myself look as unattractive as possible. When he arrived, he said I looked lovely, I thought ‘you would say that wouldn’t you’ and almost asked him to leave. He asked if I still had the dressing gown I had worn on that day, so I went upstairs to find it, he followed me and sat on the top of the stairs chatting as I changed. I realised the dressing gown was in the other bedroom and half naked I darted into there to fetch it, I didn’t notice him sneak a photo of me in my sexy vest.
He asked if he could take a photo from my garden pressing my body against the glass of the French windows. I hate this photo more than I do the rest of those he took that awful afternoon. My heart wasn’t in it, I look tired and skinny and not at all happy.
He seemed happy enough snapping away. I wasn’t going to include these, but they are part of the story and they illustrated how I could be easily used. The last photo he took had me sitting on the edge of my bed with my thighs spread and my little vulva centre stage.
After he took this shot, he pushed me backwards on the bed and put my ankles wide apart on his shoulders and started fumbling with his trouser belt. I knew I didn’t want this. I went ice cold but remained calm. I looked at him and very softly said ‘Paul, please don’t ***** me’. It was as if I had hit him with a brick. He let me go and kept saying ‘Sorry!’ over and over again. I just stared at him and eventually he left the room, I heard him run down the stairs and the front door close. I realised what a fool I had been to allow this situation, and then I pulled the bed covers over me and as the grief finally washed over me, I cried myself to sleep.
The next day an Interflora girl bought me a large bunch of roses with a printed note ‘Forgive me. Paul’. I threw them on the floor and stamped on them before throwing them in the garden waste bin. Two days later on returning from the shops I found a fat envelope on the door mat. It held a long letter from him with prints of the photos he had taken. I threw the whole lot, letter unread. Into the kitchen bin. Later that evening I changed my mind and rescued some of the photos from the potato peelings and tea leaves and I have kept them more or less as a warning to myself not to be stupid all the time.
I avoided all further contact with Paul. If his car was parked on his drive, I avoided going into the garden in case he saw me and came out, and when I walked to the shops I went the long way home to avoid walking past the front of his house. Eventually a ‘For Sale’ board was posted in his garden, and then he was gone. A young couple with a baby moved in and we soon became friends and nowadays the *********** calls me Aunty.
to be continued
6年前
