“Nah, I’ve done my bit.”
This was Elsie talking, a big, brash widow who held court every Tuesday morning at Jack’s Lounge, a coffee shop/restaurant/bar in this Caribbean community of expats. Jack’s changed its nature depending on the time of day, and in the mornings it grabbed a slice of the too-lazy-to-cook brigade who enjoyed being served.
The group was almost entirely composed of widows. Breakfast was their time because lunch meant a few glasses of pinot grigio, down which path lay early oblivion, and dinner was often a bridge too far for the derelict and the stately The faded beauties whose husbands had shuffled off early without them, leaving just a healthy bank balance and a taste for sun and sand.
“I’ve done my duty,” Elsie added just to fill the silence.
“Your duty to whom?” Karen asked drily.
“To the creator,” Elsie explained, happy to have a response and an excuse to keep talking. “To whoever made me a woman and put an expiry date on me. I’ve done what was required of me, and I’ve expired. The store is closed.”
“You mean having children?” someone else asked, a new member of the sisterhood.
“That was stage two,” Elsie said a with a languor that disguised her pleasure at talking about such things.
“What was stage one?” the newbie asked, bright and cheerful because she hadn’t been through all this before.
”Fooling around,” Elsie replied. “Teenage kissing and petting and doing what was required to move on to adulthood.”
“My god you’re grim,” Karen poked at her.
“And how many stages are there?” the newbie enquired.
“Oh, god, four or five, depending who you are.”
“Okay, what about your personal list?” The newbie couldn’t be blamed for inviting trouble, Karen thought. She didn’t know what she was letting herself in for.
“For me: five,” Elsie said triumphantly. “There was that teen stage, then the getting married and having children, then number four: lying there every night getting rammed when you’d rather be baking a cake.”
“And five?” Karen asked, knowing the answer.
“Five was a little diversion,” Elsie said, twinkling at the memory. “Extramarital. We’ve all done it.”
“I haven’t,” the newbie said.
“Ignore her,” Karen advised. “She’s full of shit.”
“So that was it?” the newbie insisted quietly for Karen’s ears only. “The wonders of love and sex in five reluctant stages?”
“Don’t encourage her,” Karen murmured as Elsie turned her cynical ramblings on someone else.
The two new friends started their own conversation. The newbie was Constance, and she wasn’t a widow. Her husband had run off with her best friend and Constance had been packed off to the Caribbean by her wealthy father to lick her wounds in private.
“Don’t use that expression in this company,” Karen advised.
The group had convened late that day and breakfast was edging towards midday.
“Just for once,” Elsie said, raising her voice in MC fashion, “What say we turn this into lunch?” She waved at the bar. “Jackson, the menus and the wine list, s’il vous plait.”
The smooth, over-tanned, tousle-haired former alcoholic and Lothario swept across the wooden decking of the open-sided premises and schmoozed his ladies.
By rights, he thought, he should have had all of these bitches, one by one or in twos. What was wrong with him these days? Too aware of possible complications. His earlier studly self would have racked them up like sheesh kebabs. Maybe that new one, he could start with her.
It all got quite loud and silly. Twelve mature women with a lifetime of stories to tell and enough wine to loosen any tongue. They confided in each other, either out loud or in discreet pairs and newbie Constance found that Jack’s method of maintaining his balance while serving or clearing was to rest his package against her shoulder, which was okay the first time but soon became tiresome.
By two o’clock everyone was way past merry, and there were mutterings about going home.
“Nonsense,” Elsie bellowed. “We can leave handsome Jack and his lovely girls, but the day is not over. My house! Coffee. Liqueurs. I have ordered a large taxi so you can leave your cars here. On second thoughts: Jack, you can leave Gail in charge and come with us.”
Elsie’s house was a big concrete place halfway up a precipitous hill, wackily designed with sweeping curves in the walls to mimic the sea – or so Karen assumed. No architect in his right mind would have come up with such a plan – it had “client’s orders” written all over it.
Elsie arranged the gathering on loungers around the pool and put on some slinky latin music which turned out to be Kid Creole and the Coconuts. A maid brought coffee and Kahlua and biscuits.
Karen and Constance chose a table and upright chairs rather than the reclining option and watched as Elsie succumbed to her inner rebel. After little more than twenty minutes she disappeared into the house with a slim, leathery British woman named Rachel.
“I wonder where the bathroom is,” Constance said a few minutes later, standing up.
“I’ll come with you,” Karen said.
They wandered through the enormous lounge and began trying doors. Empty room, spare bedroom made up and ready, then another and finally the master bedroom, the door to which was ajar. They peeped through and then pushed the door open and saw Rachel spread-eagled on the bed, naked, with the resplendently nude Elsie sitting on her face. Karen could have sworn she heard the words “golden shower” trailing off as they entered. She and Constance stood transfixed for a moment as Elsie turned her creaking head towards them.
“Come in ladies,” she said. “The more, the merrier.”
“Em, no thanks,” Constance said nervously, turning and leaving immediately.
Karen stood her ground.
“Very nice of you,” she said. “But I won’t. Don’t want to interrupt.”
Rachel wrestled Elsie aside to see who she was talking to. She smiled a welcome at Karen before Elsie pushed her back down and ground her crotch into the little woman’s face.
Constance found a separate bathroom, having dismissed the idea of the master en-suite and she and Karen stood in it, relieved as the door gave them some privacy.
“My,” Constance exclaimed. “This sure is a friendly town.”
“Body Heat,” Karen replied, recognizing the line from the film. “After you.” She toyed with the contents of the bathroom cabinet as Constance’s excess hissed onto the bowl and drilled into the water.
Then it was her turn, as her friend adjusted herself.
“So what now?” Constance asked.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Karen suggested. “I live not far away.”
Resisting the temptation to say goodbye to Elsie and Rachel and see if they really had moved on to wet play, they bypassed the pool area, where they could see Jack attempting to look casual as he homed in on a woman with a big old-fashioned beehive of blonde hair.
As they strolled down the hot, airless hill, they spoke quietly.
“Not into that?” Karen asked. “Never?”
“Tried it once at college,” Constance said uncomfortably.
“Not for you?”
“Felt okay, quite nice really, but no. Just seemed wrong, I guess. You?”
“It passed the time at one point,” Karen admitted. “But you’re right. Just seemed there was something missing.”
“Something long and hard,” Constance found herself saying.
“And with a man on the end of it,” Karen said. “Like I said, it can pass the time.”
At that moment they came to a house where a man was standing in what little shade there was, watering plants.
“Hi,” Karen called out. It was Matthew, a Canadian man she used to see while out walking in the early morning, doing the “old-fuck shuffle”.
“Hey,” Matthew called back. “How you doin’? Hot for a walk, isn’t it?”
“We were at a sort of party,” Karen explained. “Didn’t like it.”
“Come in and cool down,” Matthew offered.
His house was icy with air conditioning, the tiled floors and bare walls offering no resistance to the plummeting temperature.
He made iced tea, and the three of them relaxed. Constance had to get it off her chest, this story about the party, in case he heard about it and thought she had been involved in anything unseemly. She was sinking in a pool of alcohol. He was good-looking, respectable, respectful, intelligent and quite sexy – masculine. It had been a while since she even considered having sex, but right now it seemed like not just a good idea but kind of inevitable.
The women were on the sofa and Matthew was in a chair on the other side of the coffee table.
Constance was drunk and wanted to be fucked. Some men liked that. That’s why they ply you with drink. Others, like her husband, were rather disgusted with it. She hoped Matthew was one of the former.
But how was she going to make it happen? Apart from anything else, there were three of them, not just the standard two. And Karen and Matthew knew each other. They had probably fucked each other in their imaginations, if not real life.
Karen sat with her legs slightly apart in the little denim skirt she liked so much and imagined her mother scolding her for it. But her mother wasn’t here. The other woman was a friendly sort who had taken her under her wing. And she was interested in men rather than women, but, Constance sensed, worldly enough to be flexible. Maybe they could both have a turn with Matthew – and he wouldn’t complain. What man would?
She needed to talk to Karen in private. She needed to ask Matthew for something he would have to go looking for.
“Do you have any ibuprofen?” she asked. “Little headache.”
“Sure,” he said. “Let me go and have a look.”
This would have to be quick. She turned to Karen and said, “Have you ever had a threesome?” Karen looked at her quizzically. “I am desperate for sex right now,” Constance continued. “You know him better than I do.”
Before she could go any further, Matthew burst back into the room and thrust a blister pack at her.
She dutifully took a tablet, then another to make it look authentic.
Matthew went to the window and stared out. Karen joined him and stood very close. She touched his arm when she spoke and then she stroked his back: subtly, gently, but definitely. Constance knew her friend was on the case. She was amazed at her own brazenness and willingness to confide in this woman she hardly knew. But she felt safe with her. Constance decided to give them some time alone.
“Bathroom?” she asked.
She didn’t need the bathroom, but Karen needed the time, so Constance sat on the seat and waited five minutes. Even that was pushing it, surely, but it was better than nothing. And if the deal was still not done, she could find another excuse.
She walked back into the lounge as casually as she could manage. She found the other two holding hands.
“We’re going upstairs,” Karen said matter-of-factly. “Want to come?”
Matthew looked like the cat who had gotten more cream than he bargained for. He couldn’t even smile; he was so nervous. Incredible. Give them exactly what they’ve always wanted, and they don’t know how to handle it.
At that moment there was nothing Constance couldn’t handle. With the reckless confidence of the alcohol and the heat, plus the unresolved hurt caused by her wayward husband, she felt both empowered and entitled. Fuck it. You only live once.
“Sure,” she said, taking not Matthew’s hand but Karen’s.
Matthew’s bedroom was immaculate. He had a cleaner. He also had a wife, but she was away a lot of the time, giving talks on something to do with money. A Bitcoin expert or something. And careless with her property.
Matthew stood by the bed and awaited instructions. He didn’t know how to do this. It wasn’t even his idea. He was grateful, yes. He was excited. But he felt unsure, nervous, inadequate.
Be a man, he urged himself. Fuck these two women, who both find you desirable enough to agree to share. But he couldn’t find a way to lead. He would let Karen do it because she was clearly not fazed in any way. The other one was drunk and unpredictable. And she had a headache. She was taking her clothes off.
Yes, Constance thought. I am taking my clothes off. And I don’t care. I’m an attractive woman. I have a nice body. And I’m not going to get raped, because I want this. I hold all the cards. Why can’t I always feel like this?
When Constance was naked, she stood before the other two and just looked at them. They just looked at her, Matthew with his mouth slightly open.
Karen pulled off her top to reveal a very full black brassiere and tanned skin, white in the armpits, which she exposed while taking of the bra.
Matthew slowly unbuttoned his shorts, nervous as hell. What if I can’t get it up, he thought.
Constance lay on the bed, on her back, knees bent and shaven pussy showing. Who’s going to lick me, she thought. Karen isn’t really that way inclined, but she has done it before. And she’s probably almost as drunk as I am. Matthew, well, we’ll have to wait for him to calm down. So maybe a bit of girl-on-girl is just what he needs.
Karen was now naked and unzipping Matthew’s shorts, making herself useful, being a good sport. She wanted to suck his cock. She had always wanted to suck his cock, right from the first time she saw him doing the old-fuck shuffle.
But she could feel he wasn’t hard yet. Probably overwhelmed. Maybe she should start with Constance, and he could join in when he felt up to it.
Her formerly shy friend was now the queen of sex, lying there like Cleopatra, mellow as a warm mango, her brain like butter in the sun. If Karen made a move on her, she would acquiesce in an instant. In fact it wouldn’t be acquiescence, because that means being persuaded, and Constance was very much up for anything.
Karen lay on the bed, on her side, and stroked Constance’s stomach. She put a finger in the other woman’s navel and smelled it like she did with her own. Slightly oily, slightly savoury, not erotic in itself, but it was the smell of a human being, a woman who had other smells not too far away, and it was a long time since she had enjoyed them.
Karen got down between Constance’s legs and licked her pussy. She remembered that beautiful aroma, that fabulous taste of another woman’s vagina, not so different from her own but thrillingly unique. She remembered Cassie all those years ago, and the afternoons they had spent in Cassie’s bed, bemoaning marriage and deception and betrayal and licking each other in such a soothing way that became obsessive. Cassie had liked having her tushy licked, and Karen had been only too glad to oblige. Would Constance like that? Of course, she would. In her current state, Karen could have pushed a butternut squash up her ass, and she wouldn’t have commented except to say “ooh”.
“Turn over,” Karen ordered, and Constance did, getting up on her knees as if she knew what was coming. Karen dived in and licked her friend’s ass, Constance screwing her neck around to watch.
“Matthew,” Karen called. “Do this to me.”
In an instant they were a lascivious, lapping train and orgasms began to flow, Constance cumming with noisy gushes over Karen’s face, then Karen grinding herself back against the man.
Constance wriggled out and got on her back.
“I want to be fucked,” she said, utterly out of control, pulling Matthew on top of her. He fucked her instinctively, wildly, all thoughts of restraint and mutuality long gone. He came with a suppressed grunt, filled her with his spunk and collapsed onto her chest.
They lay and dozed for fifteen minutes before Karen went down on Matthew, enjoying the taste of Constance’s juice and his semen and getting him revved up again so he could enter her and give her her man-orgasm.
The women fell asleep and only awoke when the temperature dropped naturally outside, and the bedroom became chilly. They dressed in silence, woozy with over-and-done-with alcohol and sun. Matthew was in the lounge. He didn’t know what to say and didn’t get up as they left. Could there be another time like that or was it just a one-off?
