The Clerembeax Palace Hotel and Spa – PTA

 

The beautiful Downshire village of Clerembeax St Giles was situated to the west of Abbeyvale located between Grace Hill and Bushy Down and on the outskirts was the Clerembeax Palace Hotel and Spa which had become very important to the lives of those living in the village community with St Giles’ Church at its hub.

It was a busy village with all the usual amenities you would expect, in addition to St Giles’ Church there was a village Hall, and primary school of the same name.

There was also the Trinity Methodists Church, two pubs, Étienne of Normandy and the Saracen and Stephenson’s General store which included an off-license, newsagents and Post Office.

 

Barry Little was Deputy Head Teacher at the village school and always walked to and from work, and on the way home he liked to call in at Stephenson’s, to see someone special.

The General Store was run by Ilyas Patel, although it was his young wife Anjuli and her Aunt Shula who did all the work, along with a few additional staff.

Barry didn’t like Ilyas, he was a surly old goat, old enough to be Anjuli’s father in fact he was old enough to be Barry’s father, who spent most of his time sat on his arse watching cricket.

He thought his wife and her Aunt were both lovely though, Anjuli was ten years younger than him, and her aunt was ten years older.

They were both tall and slim with thick black hair with big almost black eyes and huge toothy smiles, which lit up the whole shop if not the village.

But as much as he liked the Patel ladies, it was not them that he was hoping to see, that privilege fell to the mother of one of his pupils, and PTA member, Shannon Smith, who he loved to distraction, unfortunately she was already married to someone else.

It all began with some harmless flirtation, he would flirt outrageously with her and she would flirt back, but then one day as she handed him some sliced ham, she let go of the package before he had hold of it properly in his grip and as they both reached to recover it their hands touched and he thought it was like a mild electricity passing between them, and he could tell by her expression that she felt it too.

 

There were many such momentary touches and they were always accompanied by the same tingling sensation but other than the flirting and brush of fingertip on hand nothing ever came of it because she was not free.

Also, it was all tacit, nothing had been said, no feelings had been expressed, and he had wanted to make it plain to her, and not just flirt and accidentally caress her hand.

 

So, on one day when she was alone in the shop and there were no prying eyes, and as they were in a CCTV blind spot, he blatantly held her hand in his and caressed the back of it with the other, he would have liked to kiss her too, but he knew that was going too far.

“You’re not free, so I can’t say that I love you” he said

“I know” she gasped 

“But it’s true nonetheless”

“I know that too” she replied quietly

“And I would kiss you if I could, but I know I can’t, so you will have to imagine me doing it instead, until I can”

“I do that every day” She replied and squeezed his hand and would not have relinquished it if another customer hadn’t entered the shop.

So, their intimate moment had passed until another day.