*TO THOSE WHO WAIT*


When her brother-in-law phoned, Pam grabbed her teacup 
and a cushion. They didn't hear from each other much 
these days, both of them being so busy carving out new 
lives. Tom worked hard and didn't spend much time at 
home, and she hated phoning that harridan Linda, his 
wife, in any case. Pam herself was frequently absorbed 
in her studies. Not only had she enrolled in two IT 
courses, she'd also taken up Japanese. Why? Because it 
was exotic and fascinating, and perhaps some day she'd 
travel there and meet the locals.

So when the phone rang and it proved to be Tom she made 
herself comfortable, for invariably their conversations 
turned into two-hour epics. And was disappointed and 
mystified when Tom simply asked could they hook up for 
lunch tomorrow? He was going to be in town, which was 
unusual in itself, and when she asked what he was doing 
he just curtly said he'd explain everything tomorrow. 
Did she know any decent coffee shops in the vicinity of 
the railway station? Their call lasted less than five 
minutes, and the whole time he had sounded short and 
brusque--most definitely not the Tom she had known for 
so long.

When she turned in for the night it was with mixed 
feelings. She was looking forward to seeing Tom 
tomorrow, but he hadn't said whether Linda and Emily, 
his daughter, would be with him or not. Her niece was a 
sweetie, but Linda was only tolerable in small doses. 
Her mouth was far too big, for a start, and she didn't 
know how to keep it shut. Tom seemed to have spent a lot 
of their married life apologising for his wife and 
smoothing ruffled feathers. Which maed his abrupt tones 
to Pam sound even stranger. She was at last convinced 
that something was wrong, terribly wrong.

Tossing in her sheets, she rolled over and tried to 
think of the things she should be pleased about. Hiro, 
the Japanese tutor, had called and suggested dinner, but 
the date he had named clashed with her night-course and 
she simply couldn't afford to miss it. Walt had 
recommended a new-release movie, although everybody in 
the faculty knew Walt liked to be seen with every 
available woman about. For a widow in her mid-forties 
she was doing quite all right, thank you very much! 
There were opportunities, but somehow, she couldn't 
bring herself to take them seriously. Yet. It took three 
years at least, her counsellor had said, before she 
would be able to free herself from the grief.

She no longer missed Mark so acutely. She had filled her 
life with activity, at first to screen out the pain; now 
she had come to enjoy herself again. Mark had swept her 
off her feet in her early university days, and she had 
given away language studies to marry him. For twenty 
years she had been housewife and mother, part-time 
schoolteacher. Then Mark had taken ill so quickly, and 
died, turning her world inside out. Financially, she had 
enough to keep herself and their son Brendan; so she had 
taken the opportunity to return to the world of 
learning, as though her marriage had been an 
interruption, a deferral. Soometimes she felt a little 
silly, very conscious of her age, especially as she 
shared accommodation with undergraduates young enough to 
be her children. But once she had lived that way for a 
while, she came to enjoy their youth and exuberance. Rex 
had been a flatmate for over a year now and was almost a 
second son as well as friend. He was nudgeing and 
winking whenever Hiro or Walt called. _You go for it, 
Pammy babe, you are one hot mama!_

So, well past a couple of years down the track, things 
were going well. Brendan was away at college; perhaps it 
was time she did take the dating game rather more 
seriously. But something still made her shiver at the 
thought of going out with new men. Somewhere along the 
line, perhaps, there would come a moment..._that_ 
moment.

Mark was the only man she had ever known as a lover. The 
thought of having any other still made her quiver, and 
not with desire. Which was completely at odds with the 
hungers her body felt, and acutely. There came times 
when she ached with need; but she was far too fussy and 
ladylike to go picking up uni boys in bars. Most times 
she thought of Mark, remembering his voice, his scent, 
his touch.

Mark had been dashing, with a pencil-thin moustache and 
spades of self-assurance. He had been a health and 
fitness fanatic, which made his death of viral 
encephalitis even more senseless. Lean and fit, a 
martial-arts expert, he could have out-fought a man half 
his age. His body had been toned and fit, his reflexes 
lightning-fast. And so had something else.

On her wedding night, Pam had wondered, "was that it?", 
and felt rather let down. Perhaps he'd just had too much 
to drink at the reception, the young bride reasoned. He 
had fallen asleep, so she had placed his hand in her 
moist crotch, and under the guidance of her own fingers 
rubbed his up and down her clitoris until she had found 
sweet, orgasmic relief. From there, she had applied her 
mind to solving what simply had to be a matter of 
timing. The male sex drive, after all, was a much more 
immediate thing, while a woman required time to get in 
the mood. Timing would be all.

And Mark was no fool. He knew she was unfulfilled and 
agreed, it was a matter of timing. His interest shifted 
to exotic Oriental sexual practices and meditation, and 
with private wry amusement Pam was sure they were the 
first couple on the block to have attempted much of the 
Karma Sutra seriously. He had obliged her keenly with 
some of the things she liked, resigned to making her 
come through secondhand means rather than his primary 
equipment.

They were a couple who enjoyed routine, Mark positively 
regimented in his. So, on Saturdays, Wednesdays and 
Fridays, Pam would go to bed at nine-thirty. She would 
wear a sheer nightie and nothing else, and perhaps take 
a sexy paperback to bed with her rather than her 
husband. Or if she didn't feel like reading, she would 
slip down between the sheets, slowly stroking and 
caressing her whole body sensuously. She would stroke 
her nipples through the soft silk of her gown until they 
formed hard peaks, and draw the fabric across them 
delighting in the gentlest of caresses. Sometimes she 
liked to leave her nightie-straps slipped down from her 
shoulders, so that her quite ample breasts would slip 
out in an almost tartish way. The kiss of cool air 
excited her, and the feeling of nudity. Then, most 
importantly, she would slip her hand up her thighs, 
finding the delicate bump of her clitoris, and there she 
would rub and tickle until the slippery juices flowed.

At ten, Mark would enter the bedroom, and draw down the 
sheets ever so slowly, revealing her body. And she would 
watch the swelling arise in his trousers, small shocks 
of need bursting through her throbbing clitoris. He 
would barely stop to unfasten his pants, and she would 
catch only a glimpse of his naked erection before he 
plunged into her quickly, handsome face contorted with 
need. And always, just as she clutched him close and her 
body started to thrum to his rhythm, he would gasp and 
fall still, that tantalising hardness inside her 
dwindling to nothingness.

Then he would stir. "What may I do for you, my darling?" 
he would whisper. And then, while his lips and tongue 
caressed her breasts, with his fingers he would slither 
within her until she moaned with ecstasy and begged him 
to stop, sensations so intense that they were 
deliciously painful. For all his speed, their sex life 
had not been unsatisfactory. And now he was gone.

Two fingers. When the need became too much, two fingers 
sufficed. In a bleak way, she was glad now that she had 
learned to achieve satisfaction without relying on an 
erect penis.

It was all behind her now, and tonight she felt too 
weary and preoccupied to be needful. Eventually, she 
drifted off to sleep.

***

She arrived at the cafe first and reserved a booth, then 
went back to the footpath to look for Tom, who was 
nowhere near as familiar with the city as she. He was, 
however, good at following directions, and before long 
she recognised his tall form alighting from a bus, 
wearing an eternally Tom-slate and conservative suit. 
There was such familiarity in that upright carriage and 
somewhat chiselled, bony face that the warmer memories 
of how life had been glowed in her memory. He had gone 
grey rather early and persisted with that combover, and 
had a neutral, sombre face until he recognised her. Then 
his brown eyes warmed, mouth turning up to smile, and he 
greeted her with a big hug and a peck on the cheek. He 
was actually a year younger than Pam, but his looks 
hadn't changed much in five years whereas Pam worried 
that she had declined woefully. That hair of hers, 
especially!

"There you are, Tom! After our phonecall last night, I 
was so worried, I thought something terrible might have 
happened from the way you were talking."

"No, no," he assured her, "I'm all right now. That must 
have been one of our shortest phone conversations ever, 
and I do apologise if I sounded rude, but I was in a 
hurry...so much has happened lately."

"Come on, I have a table reserved for us." She wondered 
at the strange, cold light in his eyes. He seemed 
haggard, and his eyes were bloodshot. "You must tell me 
what you've been up to."

"You mightn't thank me when you hear what's been going 
on. Before we get started, Pam, I just want you to know 
how much I appreciate your meeting me here today at such 
short notice. But I...I'm sorry, I need somebody to talk 
to, and you were always the one to listen, the best. 
You're about the only person I can rely on any more, you 
know that?"

"It's no problem, Tom...but what on earth's the matter?"

She spent the next three hours listening, as Tom told 
the tale of the final, sordid collapse of his marriage. 
In the past week he had filed for divorce. He wanted to 
leave their home town altogether, to quit the dull grind 
of his public service posting, and perhaps indulge his 
boyhood dream of going to sea. His cousin had a marine 
engineering firm, and had told Tom he could use an 
experienced stores and supply clerk if life at home 
continued to be "rough". Of course Linda would wish to 
claim custody of Emily.

Pam listened with detached sympathy. There seemed little 
point in telling Tom this had always seemed an 
inevitable outcome. There had been many times over the 
years when Pam wondered how two such different 
personalities had gotten together. Linda, loud and 
blundersome, goodhearted but entirely without tact, 
hopping around with one foot ever gracelessly in her 
mouth; and quiet, understated Tom, for whom peace and 
quiet and a good book denoted a good time. Unless he was 
drum-majoring the municipal brass band, which was the 
only time the hidden veins of colour in Tom's 
personality came to the surface.

Beside his brother Mark, Tom had been unassuming to the 
point of drabness; a younger brother eclipsed by his 
flamboyant sibling. "Apparently, I had become far too 
boring for her," he laughed bitterly. "I slave away for 
a living and keep a roof over our heads, food on the 
table, the car running smoothly. I don't expect to be 
waited on hand and foot; what's more, I keep the peace 
with all our friends. I don't hold her down when she 
wants to gad about the neighbourhood. I'm considerate 
and I'm housetrained, she doesn't have to clean up after 
me. But do you know what did it for her? I was boring 
because I wouldn't do her like a dog in a ditch by the 
main road into Kennaware. That was her idea of 
excitement, and when I wouldn't do it, she found someone 
who did."

"You mean she had an affair?" Pam had been going to 
suggest that perhaps there had been some need to spice 
up their love-life. Somehow she imagined Tom was a 
Sunday-night missionary, as regimented as Mark had been. 
Herself, the predictability of her married life had been 
a little stale at times, but also comfortably stable, a 
cosy if somewhat dated lounge-chair of a romance. Linda 
was a good-time gal, the life of the party, and would 
have bored very quickly indeed.

"Remember Slater, George Slater?" He was the local 
upholsterer, a pleasant and avuncular man who had been a 
friend of Tom's. Universally acclaimed by the townsfolk 
as a lovely guy, a nice fellow; five-nine and portly, 
aged in his mid-fifties, with a bristling moustache--he 
often played gigs as Santa at Christmas charity dinners. 
"Linda had to take Emmy to an optometrist in Kennaware, 
and I had the car and had to work that day, so George 
very kindly offered to drive them over." Which was just 
the sort of kindness George was renowned for. Tom's 
nostrils flared, and he rubbed both hands back over his 
thin hair. "See, she didn't just say she was having an 
affair and leave it at that, ohh no! She insisted on 
describing it in all its lurid details, as if to shame 
me for my lack of daring..."

Pam pursed her lips, but made herself listen to allow 
Tom to let go his grief and disgust; she knew she was 
not going to like what she would hear.

...moaning to George about how dull life had become as 
they drove to Kennaware, and Tom was so dull and the 
most interesting thing he had ever attempted to do was 
dress up in his band costume, when she wanted excitement 
and danger and risk. He'd let her join the nudist camp 
but didn't go along because he didn't much like the idea 
of living as Nature had intended, he was such an old 
stick-in-the mud and a party pooper besides. Where had 
the spontaneity gone? He bought her flowers and trinkets 
and kept her credit card liquid, as though that could 
make up for him being too tired when she was in the 
mood--he had actually fallen asleep beneath her one 
night! Yes, he worked hard and was a good man, so 
perhaps he really did get too tired, so she'd tried to 
give him the hint on weekends. "Come quick!" she would 
say, indicating the bathroom while their daughter was 
playing in the family room with her friends, and he 
would refuse, then sulk. Or she would wrap her legs 
around him while they relaxed in the above-ground pool. 
"Let's do it here, in the garden, in the sun! Hurry up!" 
The fact that the neighbours were having a barbecue and 
Emmy was bouncing on the other neighbours' trampoline 
only made her keener, and Tom grumpier in his refusals.

George nodded sagely and agreed, marriage certainly 
needed spice and variety. He'd heard the local doctor 
and his wife were real swingers, and that they were into 
wife-swapping with the doctor's brother. Linda had 
giggled, intrigued, but knew Tom would never go in for 
such a thing. Although he always did spend a lot of time 
talking to that stuck-up cow Pam, Linda laughed...

Pam flushed and almost hit her feet for outrage on 
hearing that; Tom gave a quick smile and put his hand on 
her forearm to steady her. "How _dare_ she suggest such 
a thing!" she spluttered. "We're both far too 
decent...we have too much respect for each other, you 
were only ever a perfect gentleman toward me and I would 
never debase myself so, most particularly while my 
husband was still alive!"

"We both know that; you were utterly devoted to Mark, 
and I swore marriage vows to honour my wife that I never 
broke. But poisonous tongues abound. She was probably 
only making one of her silly jokes, but...ah, there I go 
protecting her again, when I owe her absolutely nothing 
but alimony. I've got to get used to not making excuses 
for her anymore."

"And she was going on with such talk in front of Emily?"

"So it seems. I didn't want to ask Emmy about the things 
her mother said, of course. To Linda's thinking, the 
girl won't grow up if she doesn't hear grown-up talk."

"Tom, she's not ten years old!"

...and to his credit Tom had suggested trying some 
different things occasionally, like strange positions 
and even kinky things, but Linda declared she was no 
gymnast, she wanted it down and dirty, quick and easy 
and simple, with dirty words that Tom just couldn't seem 
to get his mouth around convincingly; things she 
couldn't say in front of Emily, of course.

She had taken Emily up to the optometrist's office. He 
was running late and there would be a bit of a wait, but 
Emily had her nose in a book so much like her father 
would. Linda was dying for a cup of coffee, so she'd 
left Emily at the medical centre on her own and found a 
coffee shop. She had noticed a wicked, mischievous light 
in George's grey eyes as they ordered. He was quite 
pleasant to look at, she thought. The shop was busy, and 
the waitress had apologised for seating them so far down 
the back. They were in a corner, with only a planter-box 
between them and the rest of the cafe. A quartet of old 
ladies cackled and stirred tea just the other side of 
the greenery.

It was the spontaneity that was so important, he told 
her with that flirtatious smile, taking her hand and 
placing it in his lap under the table. There she had 
felt a distinctive, rock-hard, bullet-headed shape 
beneath his polyester wash-and-wear shorts. Ever Linda, 
she had giggled, and met the unspoken dare in his eyes 
to keep her hand there. Probing with her fingers, 
pushing at the cloth, she measured as much of his length 
as she could, and made a ring of her fingers over its 
tip, squeezing the hot, springy flesh.

While she did that, he slipped his hand beneath the hem 
of her skirt, making idle conversation about the fields 
full of sunflower blossoms on the outskirts of town, 
sunny and bold and brassy just like her. His fingertips 
made little circles as he inched them along her inner 
thigh, and she shifted her seat so that they sat closer 
together, parting her legs more so that he could reach 
right up to...he teased her, taking his fingers up 
closer, closer, but doing no more than brushing the 
gusset of her panties. They smiled at each other like 
naughty children making mischief, and this was the most 
fun Linda had known in years and years. With his other 
hand, he upped the ante by unzipping his fly, there in 
the restaurant beneath the table, while old ladies 
gossiped and cappucino broiled and a waitress bustled 
hastily past with dirty dishes stacked high.

He made as though he were adjusting his chair, checking 
for his wallet and car keys and finding his 
handkerchief. When he was done shuffling, Linda reached 
for his lap again, and touched the hot, silken dome that 
peeped from his pants. She could ease her fingers down 
the ridged sides into a nest of curling hair; slipped 
them back up to feel the rim, the creases underneath. 
George was having trouble keeping track of their 
conversation now, and he moistened his lips, brow 
sheening with sweat. With the tip of her finger she 
found the notch at the very tip, wriggling it in the 
slippery droplet she found there.

Then she excused herself and went to the restroom 
briefly. When she returned, she favoured him with a 
dazzling grin and sat close by. She took his hand and 
placed it firmly on her inner thigh again, and was 
pleased to find he had not put anything away while she 
was gone. This time, his fingertips tickled her pubes, 
for her damp knickers were now in her handbag.

She commented the service was woefully slow and they 
didn't really have time for this. George agreed and 
fumbled for his car keys. The coffee could wait.

They drove just outside of town, to where the first of 
the sunflower fields began. As soon as the car was 
mobile, Linda unzipped him again, and delighted in 
seeing as well as touching that fiery red cockhead. He 
drove with one hand on the wheel, reaching for her 
breast with the other, cupping it and feeling the weight 
of it. She worked her dress up until her pussy was in 
clear view, laughing merrily as he struggled to divide 
his attention between the road and that snatch. She was 
so excited already that her clit was zinging and her 
vagina clenching in anticipation.

George brought the car to a sharp halt by the closest 
sunflower field, gravel crunching. He didn't even shut 
off the engine; he leapt from the car and ran around to 
grab her hand, and they raced to the smooth wire fence 
that edged the paddock, scrambling through a ditch. He 
held the wire strands of the fence apart so that she 
could clamber through, and she couldn't tear her eyes 
from his exposed dick. As soon as they got just a few 
sunflower plants between themselves and the road, she 
dropped to all-fours and flung her skirt up over her 
back, pointing her wet, needful hole at him. George's 
belt and loose change jingled as he dropped his pants; 
his fingers were taut and clutched at her ample beam, 
and he jammed his rod into her deep and hard.

There, in the dust and heat, in the buzzing of bees and 
flies, he shoved in and out of her hard and fast, 
grunting like a lustful hog. She cried out for him to 
fuck her cunt harder, harder, fucking harder, and 
screamed and gasped and moaned from the depths of her 
lungs. He groped beneath her blouse, demanding her tits 
to squeeze and promising he'd fuck her like she'd never 
been fucked before, the way a slut should be, anywhere 
she liked, anywhere he pleased, any time. And while she 
moaned and gasped and laughed, she grabbed roughly for 
his taut balls. He pulled out suddenly, and warm fluid 
splattered her rump; she laughed again and rubbed his 
juice into her skin and promised she was safe, she 
wasn't going to get pregnant. A semi-trailer and a 
string of traffic roared by, so close that exhaust fumes 
wafted over them. Laughing and gasping, they staggered 
to their feet again, trying to compose themselves, 
wondering where she was going to wash her hands. George 
generously offered to piss on them.

They went back and picked up Emily, then drove home 
saying little, but sometimes smiling or giggling. After 
that, Linda hadn't bothered Tom any more. When he did 
make love to her, she did little more than tolerate it, 
and overtly watched the clock as if to wish it would be 
over sooner. She acquired some nice new upholstered 
dining room chairs, and visited George's showroom often 
as she struggled to decide which setting looked the best 
and kept changing her mind.

Linda was not good at keeping secrets. At last, bored 
and frustrated with Tom's bedroom etiquette, she told 
him how should be doing it. The way George did it.

"I'm sorry, Pam, so very sorry...I just...needed to talk 
to somebody, and you knew what she was like, I..." Tom's 
face was scarlet with embarrassment, but pale beneath 
the flush. "Was it really me? I was raised not to call 
women insulting names, I...I don't know..."

She tried to reassure him, to help his shattered 
confidence. "Good gracious, Tom, there is nothing 
flattering about smutty or abusive talk like that, it's 
cheap and tawdry...just like Linda, I fear. Don't blame 
yourself. If Mark had spoken to me like that, ohh, how 
horrid! Tom, it just wasn't worth it. She wasn't worth 
it. You've done the right thing in getting away from all 
that."

He gave a small, painful smile, brown eyes sincere. "At 
least you're a lady, Pam. As long as I've known you, 
you've always had class. If only Linda could have taken 
a leaf from your book."

"What on earth were you doing with the sort of person 
who gets excited by a man who exposes himself in a cafe, 
I mean, really!" Pam looked about, still appalled by 
what she had heard. They sat in a coffee-shop, thinly 
populated in the late afternoon, and for the first time 
she wondered if any of the couples in the darker, 
further booths might be engaged in a furtive grope?

"Maybe I was desperate. Mark had scored a delightful 
woman and gotten married, and I was feeling left behind 
until Linda flounced in. She wanted me then, and I 
thought that was my big chance." He shrugged. "I made 
the best go of it that I could, and this is the thanks I 
get."

"Well," said Pam briskly, hitting full maternal-advisory 
mode. "It'll take you a while to get your balance now 
that this has happened, but what you need to do next is 
aim higher. You'll mend, you'll feel better without her, 
and you'll be able to find yourself the lady a gentleman 
like you deserves. I'm not the only one about, you 
know." She winked sagely, although privately, her words 
rang hollow. Three years on from Mark, she hadn't found 
anyone else. But that was different, she told herself. 
She had been parted from Mark in grief, not in hatred. 
Tom's situation was entirely different to her own.