Carlene

I wake with a start. Where am I? I can hear the ocean, but the faint light coming into the room is all wrong, and I’m hot. My heart is thumping in my ears, and I can feel my neck pulsing.

Then I realize why.

I’m not in bed alone.

For a moment, my mind retracts eighteen months, and I nearly nudge back with my elbow at Phil, to get him to release me. He would always make me so hot in the summer months, but boy, was he useful as a personal heater in the colder winter months out west. Only it isn’t Phil, and it isn’t eighteen months ago.

My groggy mind pieces it all back together.

I have no idea what day it is, with the crazy time change, but I guess it’s still in the middle of the night.

I’m in the USA, and I’m in bed with a stranger. An escort, at that.

Stupid thing is, he doesn’t feel like a stranger. In fact, I swear it feels as if I’ve known him for years. He’s been just like his company had promised, “the perfect gentleman.”

He’s taken care of everything. I haven’t had to think or worry about one little detail.

Last night, he put me to bed, and it seemed like the most normal thing in the world for him to lay there with me as I drifted off to sleep. Was that weird? Should I have felt uneasy, because I didn’t. I felt relaxed, safe, and excited, all at once. I would never have thought I could bond with anyone so quickly, let alone a man I had never met before earlier in the afternoon.

Now, my bladder is screaming, and I’m wide awake. Besides, I have no idea what time it is. As carefully as I can, I slip from underneath his arm.

“Are you okay, Oz?” His voice is a little raspy from sleep.

“Um, just need to use the bathroom.”

I shift from the bed and take care of nature’s needs. All the while, the crazy thing running around in my head is he knew exactly who I am. He hadn’t called me a generic name like babe or sweetheart just before, which surely is the safe route for a man like him. Rome used the nickname he’d given me.

I take the time to clean my teeth, not knowing what will happen next and being surprisingly okay with it—sort of.

This is my two-week adventure, and I can be whoever and whatever I want to be. I don’t have any commitments or responsibilities to anyone but me. Nobody knows me or has any expectations. Both a liberating feeling and quite odd.

Never do I remember feeling like this.

It’s exciting and scary at the same time.

Rome throws the bed covers back as I exit the bathroom door, inviting me to rejoin him. He’s turned the lamp on, and he looks glorious and rumpled lying there sleepy in the shadows. Some sort of mythical God, resting amongst the sheets of my bed.

With as much grace as I can muster, I slip back into bed. My comfy cotton singlet and shorts are the only barrier between me and Rome’s naked muscled chest.

As if it’s the most normal thing to do, he pulls me to him for a moment in a cuddle, then drops a kiss to a spot just below my ear, and I shiver from the tingles it sends through me.

“Excuse me for just a moment, possum. I’ll be right back.” He rises from the bed, and I enjoy the show as he makes his way to the bathroom in nothing but boxer shorts. The man is built, everywhere.

Possum, hmmm. I’m going to have a devil of a time remembering what I’m supposed to answer to at this rate. I glance at my phone; it’s just after four am here. Way too early to be up and about.

Chels has sent me a couple of texts wanting to know how everything is going. How is everything going? What do I say? I’m thinking through an answer to her when I hear him opening the bathroom door.

Without thought, I discard the phone, leap from the bed, and flee out onto the balcony, suddenly terrified to be in the bed with him. Not terrified, terrified but terrified about how much I’m wanting to be there.

Is it wrong to want to be there, to feel something again? Am I being unfaithful to Phil’s memory?

I let my guard down last night. It must have been the jetlag, and the beer. Most likely also Rome’s amazing hands on my feet and legs. I’ve never felt so spoiled.

Today, it all seems like a dream. Had that really been me? Talking to him like an old friend last night, sitting with my feet in his lap, while he rubbed away all the tension I was feeling?

The early morning is crisp, very crisp I discover, when I only have on the lightest of clothes.

I feel him behind me more than hear him.

The sound of the ocean rolling in from across the road is reassuring. It’s been my constant companion for the last eighteen months in my new apartment on the coast. The sound of the waves is soothing and familiar.

I’m enjoying the ocean from the opposite direction today, but it’s still my friend, whatever angle I look at it from. I need that right now. I need to feel the stability of the normalcy, when my thoughts and emotions are so upside down.

Rome wraps a blanket around my shoulders, and immediately, I’m engulfed not only in warmth but also in caring. I’ve had damned little of that in my life, particularly of late. Which only makes every emotion I’m feeling seem amplified to the extreme. I can’t recall Phil doing anything so thoughtful, and it’s like a knife strike to my heart.

“Everything okay?” he asks, moving in behind me and wrapping his arms loosely around my waist to add more heat and comfort.

My body immediately relaxes back against him even though my mind continues to war.

“Just felt like some air,” I finally manage, trying to cover my very hasty exit to the balcony and all over the place emotions.

“I love listening to the ocean.” I appreciate that he doesn’t push me about my embarrassing flight from the bed.

“Me too. I was just thinking how the sound of the ocean has become very familiar to me over the last year or so.”

“That must be nice. Soothing and comforting?”

I turn slightly so I can see his face. He’s looking out to sea, over my shoulder.

“Yes, exactly,” I agree, surprised once again, he seems to know precisely what I’m thinking.

He doesn’t say any more for a few moments. We both stand there taking it all in—together with his body wrapped around mine.

“What do you usually do in the mornings at home?” Rome eventually asks.

“Normally, I get up and take a walk along the beach, maybe stop at a café for a coffee. Go to the gym. That’s about it. I don’t do much with myself these days.” The last bit I added without thinking and immediately wish I hadn’t. It’s embarrassing how idle I’ve been since I left the property.

“Want to take a walk down on the beach now?”

It’s an easy question to answer. “Sure.”

He steps back and lets me go. “In that case, Oz, you’d better get dressed. Although, in case I haven’t mentioned it, I think you look damned cute in your pjs.”

A hot blush races to my cheeks and the best I can come up with is, “give me five minutes.”

As I turn to head in, he gives me a light swat on the backside. I spin around and look at him with surprise.

Rome responds with a cheeky grin. “Couldn’t resist.” He shrugs easily.

It’s light-hearted and fun. My face heats even further, and I feel a little giddy with excitement. Light, free, and devoid of tension.

All new feelings for me.

Rome

So far, so good. I survived night one. And it was surprisingly easy to boot. Is it because I’ve taken a break, or because Carlene is just an easy person to be around? A non-diva, how refreshing. God knows, I’ve dealt with my share over the years. Which makes me appreciate sane and balanced so much more.

We head across the road from the hotel and down onto the beach. She slips off her flip-flops as soon as her feet touch the sand, and I reach for them. A strange look crosses her face, and I wiggle my fingers, urging her to pass them to me.

“It’s fine. I can carry my own thongs.”

I send a smirk her way. “Oz, you’re in America now. Here, you wear ‘a’ thong, and if we walk on the beach together, I carry your flip-flops.”

“Really! You call them flip-flops? Who would have thought? And I have no idea what you mean about the other thong.”

I almost trip. Stunned. What woman doesn’t know what a thong is?

Maybe she’s playing dumb with me?

“You really have no idea what a thong is?”

She shakes her head, and I see honesty as she walks beside me. “Nope.”

“In that case, then I guess it’s my duty to educate you on the finer points of women’s undergarments.”

That earns me a sideways look of surprise.

“A thong here is a very skimpy piece of satin, lace, or sometimes cotton that covers your pussy and delectably divides your ass cheeks. A personal favorite of mine.”

She lets out a low laugh. “Ah, a G-string. Why didn’t you just say so?”

“I thought I just did?”

“Yeah, I guess you did. Can’t say it’s a piece of underwear I’m familiar with though.” There’s that genuine honesty again in her voice. This is a first for me. I haven’t come across a woman in this job who would admit to not being familiar with a thong. In most cases, they all want to appear worldly and very raunchy.

“You serious?”

“Absolutely…not a lot of use for G-strings on a cattle station, Rome. It’s all about practical out there.”

I’m getting that practical message loud and clear, but what about the balance here? The practical woman is interesting and very novel but I want to know her more. What about the woman she is at her basest level? She’s the one I’m in intrigued about.

Her phone beeps, and she pulls it out of her pocket and mutters a little.

“Everything all right?”

“Yes, just Chels checking up on me. I just told her to go to bed and stop worrying about me.”

I laugh. “Once a mother, always a mother, I guess.”

“Sorry, I’m being rude reading her text.” There’s a hint of defense in her tone.

“Please don’t apologize. That’s not what I meant. I get you’ll always be a mother, and I have absolutely no issue you talking to your kids anytime. They always will and should come first for you. It’s a quality I really love and admire. Unfortunately, not all women are as concerned about their kids as they should be.”

She places her hand naturally on my forearm. “Thanks for understanding. They worry about me and me about them. I just feel more relaxed knowing they’re okay and vice versa.”

I cover her hand on my arm briefly with mine. “No problem at all. Totally understandable and admirable. I think Anton may have mentioned you had kids. To be honest, I didn’t take much notice at the time. I was rushing to get ready to meet you. How old is your daughter?”

Carlene laughs and gives me a coy look, and as her hand slips naturally from my arm, I catch it with mine and link our fingers.

“Chelsea and her twin brother are twenty-one.”

I’m too slow to stop the sharp intake of breath or the “what?” that slips from my mouth.

“You heard right. Chelsea and her twin brother turned twenty-one a few months ago.” She looks far too young and fresh for this to be true.

“How old were you when you had them?”

“I was almost nineteen.”

“That’s young by today’s standards. Was it true love?”

She hesitates, and I sense she’s feeling uneasy. This is not uncommon. Most widows feel a level of guilt about being with me. They’ve often spent years faithfully with one man.

“I thought so at the time, Rome. It was definitely true lust, and it was the time-old clichéd story. Girl meets boy. Girl and boy can’t keep their hands or other parts off each other. Girl gets pregnant. Boy marries girl. All their plans go up in lust and being parents and responsible becomes their new path. Things go well for a while, then circumstances and life starts to wedge between them, until finally she becomes a widow, twenty years later. That was eighteen months ago, and here I am, starting over.”

Yeah, she’s right. Definitely not the first time I’ve heard this story. Unfortunately, it’s far too common. There’s more to her story, and for some reason, I want it all—in good time.

“What would your old path have been, if you hadn’t met him?”

“His name was Phillip,” she says. She mentioned him last night, but now I feel by reinforcing it, she’s giving me permission to think and talk about him by name as well. “It was so long ago, I really wasn’t decided on what my dreams were. There just seemed to be so many opportunities, and they were all not geographically where I was at the time.”

This confuses me a little. “I’m not sure what you mean, Oz.” She squeezes my hand as if drawing strength from me.

“The opportunities were in the city. I just wanted to get out of the outback, away from the drought and dying cattle. We were in the grips of another drought in our town, about that time. It was just red dust, as far as the eye could see. It gets into everything.” She shudders a little at the memory, and I realize just how much this affects her.

“If you’re not a farmer or a cattleman, then you’re stuck in a tiny town providing essential services like medical, banking, post. And even then, it’s only the most rudimentary of services, like my parents. They ran the post office and general store. I didn’t want that life to be mine. And then I met Phillip, and I ended up exactly where I didn’t want to be. Only difference was, I did want to be with the man I was pregnant and very quickly married to.”

“So it was more than lust, you fell in love, even if it was young love.” I lighten my tone playfully and tug at her arm in fun.

She grins and tugs at my hand right back.

“Oh, it was lust and yes, it was love too. I loved Phillip with all my heart. I gave him everything.”

Carlene was saying one thing but there was a big “but” in her tone, and I’m not going digging there now, maybe not ever. For now, I need to keep the conversation rolling. The key to being a good companion—good conversation. Hot sex works too, but one thing invariably leads to another when the trust is built with conversation.

“So, you told me you moved from the outback to the coast when your husband died. That’s got to be a massive change. Other than the obvious, why? Why did you move from the town and people you knew?” These questions are knocking at me because I’m sure, somewhere in here, lies the keys to the real Carlene.

Her shoulders tense, and I feel it right down through our joined hands briefly before she fights to relax and I wonder how forthcoming she will be.

“Rome, I’m not proud to say this but when Phil, died, I couldn’t get out of there quick enough and move to the Gold Coast. Over the years, Colanara had squeezed the life out of Phil, and it had done a damned good job of doing the same to me. I had to get away.” She is begging me to understand what she’s gone through. These two weeks, I’m totally here for her however she needs me and right now, she needs me to hear her.

“There was no life for me out on the land anymore. So, I headed to the coast. Something totally the opposite to what I knew. I figured I was going to start a brand new life. And if I was going to do that, then I needed it to be totally different to what I was accustomed to. The other one didn’t fit me anymore.” Her voice trails off and I hear the emotion, the catch in her throat, the pleading in her eyes for me to understand. This is a woman who feels a lot of guilt about moving away from where she’d been.

She gathers the strength and resolve to go on. “The outback life actually hadn’t fit for the few years before Phil’s accident. When he passed, it just amplified everything, and I had to get out of there. I feel embarrassed to say, it was only a matter of a few weeks and I’d left. I know it shocked a lot of our neighbors and people in town. The looks they gave me. You would have sworn I’d committed a crime selling the property to the gas miners and getting out of there.”

I squeeze her hand tighter in understanding. I’m about to pull her into my arms to offer comfort, but it’s as if she reads my mind and breaks free to stride on through the firm sand toward the water’s edge.

This is her way of asking for a little space. We touched too close to the wound, and the pain struck hard.

I understand her words and position so well. I’ve lived it too. I follow along a few feet behind her. Here if she wants me, but giving her the space she needs to compose herself as well. I may just have been exactly where she was and I’d totally changed my life. I know what it’s like to just have to get out for your own sanity and survival.

A big part of me knows there’s another change coming in my life. This feeling, the restlessness, is one of the main reasons I backed away earlier in the year, from doing exactly what I’m doing now.

I need to be fully invested in a client, and it had been harder and harder to reach that place before I took the time off. Funnily enough, I don’t feel this way with Carlene so far, although I’m sure it will happen soon. It always does.

She drifts back to me after a few minutes and looks more composed. I casually brush my hand against hers, offering the connection if she wants it. A little to my surprise but very much to my liking, she slips her hand into mine.

“It’s similar to here, you know, where I live. But on the other side of the Pacific. Although, it’s nowhere near as commercialized or busy as here. That’s different, though.”

I look up at where she’s pointing with the hand I’m not holding. She’s pointing to the sun rising above the buildings. “Where I’m from, the sun rises over there.” She throws her head to the right, gesturing at the ocean.

“Same ocean, just different sides, right.”

“Something like that,” Oz agrees.

“I like the sound of a place like this, only less commercial.”

“I’m happy with it. In fact, I’ve really found somewhere I feel at home. I wasn’t sure it would be the case when I moved, as I explained, it’s just so different.”

I can understand that, probably better than most, and I get the rare urge to extend our connection by giving her a little of me—something I don’t do with a client.

“I used to live in New York for a long time. It’s a crazy busy place and kind of has a heart-beat and soul of its own. There came a time when it didn’t fit anymore, and I found myself on the opposite coast with a different life.”

I note the fleeting surprise before she nods and politely doesn’t push. I’m a little disappointed. I don’t like clients asking about my story, and I go to great conversational lengths to avoid their questioning. We make it a rule not to divulge too much personal information about ourselves. Somehow, with Carlene, it feels different. If she asks, I’m also sure, I’ll answer her honestly.

“I don’t think I’d like New York. I’ve discovered I’m not much of a city girl. Where I live now, is the best of both worlds. I have access to anything the city can provide but with the peace and tranquility of living in a much less populated area. So I’m happy with my new place. Now, I just need to figure out what to do with my days. For a long time after I moved, I was so tired. All I did was exist. I think it was because I’d spent the last years working like crazy to keep us afloat. It’s only been the last few months, the fatigue has started to go. For months, each day, I’d get up and wander for hours along the beach or around the shops or the malls, something like that. Stuff I’d never done.” This sounds more like the women here I knew.

“Do you like shopping? We have some great shopping here.” It isn’t my most favorite thing, but if she wants to shop, I’ll struggle through with a smile on my face and two strong arms to carry her purchases.

She looks a little uneasy, and I wonder what I said to make her feel that way. Then she tugs on our joined hands.

“What?” She has me a little off balance.

“I have a confession to make.” For the first time, her expression turns truly playful, and I love it. “I really don’t like shopping. It gets hollow after a while. Sure, I will buy a few things for the kids and myself, while I’m here, but I have no intentions of spending hours, aimlessly walking a shopping mall. Surely they can’t be that different from home?”

“So you’re not looking for a sexy cocktail dress for a dinner or function?” I tease, picking up on the playfulness she laid down.

“I’m not really into clothes. I have no need for a fancy wardrobe. I tend to stick to practical. It’s not like I go anywhere to justify purchasing something fancy. It would just sit in my wardrobe and collect dust.”

The idea of not walking the malls certainly appeals to me, then I realize it’s kind of sad. A beautiful woman like Carlene should have a reason to dress up and feel special about herself, regularly. From what she’s told me, I’m certain she’s missed out on so many things most women take for granted every day.

I need to right that. She deserves to have someone take care of her for a bit. This realization only makes me want to show her more, try even harder to open her up to more experiences. Show her how beautiful she is and how life should be.

And there’s an experience I really need her to try now. Rather than think about it any longer, I decide it’s time for some action. Time to put mission, Make Carlene Feel Beautiful into force.

With far more assuredness than I honestly feel, I move in and press my lips gently to hers. I swallow her initial surprise and gather her against me. The tension in her body releases in levels as I nibble carefully along the line of her lips, encouraging her to open to me, to seek more from me, to need me.

She lets out a breathy sigh and shivers a little. That’s the sign I’ve been looking for. I drop our flip-flops and her hand. I cup one hand to the side of her head and the other I use to hold her against me. My dick is stirring between us as she lets out another little moan, finally taking the hint and opening her mouth for me.

My tongue slips into her mouth with all the practice and experience of the master I am. She dodges me for a few seconds, before I grow impatient at her hesitation and suck her tongue into my mouth for some more serious conversation.

The bite of her nails into my shoulders and the hard pebbles of her nipples against my chest let me know, I’m definitely on the right track. I slip my hand down her back until it rests on her lush ass, where I pull her completely against me. I want her to feel just what kissing her is doing to me, and her low whimper is my reward.

Finally, I ease up on the intensity and let her breathe. This kiss we’re sharing is a taste. It’s about waking her up to what could be between us, a sneak peek into how hot I’d make sure it is for her.

Gently, I break the kiss. More and more people are joining us on the beach. I don’t want an audience, a suggestive comment, or a whistle causing her to retreat. It’s all going forward for the next two weeks to the new Carlene. The beautiful, desirable Carlene. No going back to the old Carlene. This is my new mission, and I’m gladly accepting it.