The Maddocks family lived in the small country village of Mornington-By-Mere in the Finchbottom Vale which nestled between the Ancient Dancingdean Forest and the rolling Pepperstock Hills.
Which was a quaint picturesque village, a
proper chocolate box picturesque idyll, with a Manor House, 12th Century
Church, a Coaching Inn, Windmills, an Old Forge, a Schoolhouse, a River and a
Mere.
They lived in one of the Brooke
Side Cottages, number 1, in the part of
the Village known as Manorside.
Cathy Maddocks was an attractive twenty nine
year old widow who lived with her six year old twins, Lily
and Iris, and an 18 year old step daughter Gillian.
Cathy’s husband John was much older than she
was when they married but he was the love of her life and she was absolutely
devastated when he died suddenly.
After the bottom fell out of her world she
spent the subsequent two years following his passing in loneliness and celibacy
and every night her dreams were filled with images of the man she so
desperately loved and vivid pictures of the physical expression of their love
which was why she woke up every morning exhausted and in tears.
Most days she would wake early enough to cry
her tears and compose herself before she started her day but on
one particular morning her 6 year old twins charged into the room and leapt on
the bed before she barely got started so she hid her face from her children
until she could show them a happy face.
Plan (b) was to cry her tears in the shower while
Gillian gave the twins their breakfast, which was all going very well until the
water went cold.
“Bollocks” she snapped and turned the water off.
“Perfect bloody timing”
It was so frustrating as the shower had been playing
up recently and she had been meaning to ask her brothers best friend Dave
Plunkett, who had his own business in Shallowfield, to look at it but she hadnt
got around to it and as she stepped out of the shower Cathy really wished that
she had.
That only left Plan (c) so Cathy dried herself and
returned to her bedroom.
She knelt on the bed with a large white bath sheet wrapped
around her and facing her dressing table mirror she put her head in her hands
and sobbed her heart out.
Her tears flowed unrestrained when she became aware of
voices on the landing and she looked to the door.
“Don’t come in, don’t come in, please don’t
come in” she screamed in her head and the danger passed so she shed
her tears in peace until she ended in a panting sobbing heap.
Cathy remained doubled over on her bed for a
full five minutes after she finished then she raised herself up and wiped her
eyes and attended to her makeup before she dressed so she could go about her
day.
Cathy had pledged after her husband’s death that she would never share
her heart with a man again and she closed her heart to love for anyone other
than the twins and Gillie.
There wasn’t much in the way of extended family and of those
that did exist the Maddocks were only in contact with her brother Pete and his
wife Clare and for Cathy that was enough.
Although she kept the world at arms length and the
family were very happy there were always occasions when she had to let the
outside world in.
Such as when the shower went on the fritz and she
needed a plumber, so she had to call her brothers best friend David Plunkett.
A call that Dave was only to willing to answer,
without a second thought, because Dave had admired Cathy from afar since he was
in year seven.
Cathy was in the year above him but his friendship
with Pete brought them into the same sphere on a regular basis.
Unfortunately he never managed to stay in her orbit
long enough to make an impact but he always lived in hope of being noticed
until the day when she married John Maddox and then he thought she was lost to
him forever.
When John died suddenly after 7 years he saw a
glimmer of hope but he had to sit on his hands while she went through the grieving
process, but he didn’t know it would take over two years.
So when he took the call from her for the plumbing
job he thought maybe it was finally his time.
When the day came to look at the problem it was
something of an anticlimax as he barely even got a glimpse of Cathy, and he
only really got to see the step daughter Gillian who he thought was very protective
of her stepmum when he asked where she was.
She also hung around him and his apprentice Owen a
lot and Dave was almost certain that if Owen chose to make a play for her that
he would have been warmly welcomed, but he wasn’t there to play matchmaker.
It was a similar story a month later when there was a
leak in the kitchen and he only got to see Gillian so it wasn’t until three months
after that when the boiler died that he finally managed to reaquaint himself
with Cathy.
It was a day when he was on his own but it was not an
altogether happy reunion as he found her colder and more distant than before
and she had thawed very little by the time he reached the end of the job.
“Well that’s me done” he said as he packed his tools
away
“Is there anything else you need me to do before I
head off?”
“Um” she responded and then fell silent again
Dave waited for her to speak again but when she didn’t
he said
“Ok, well if you have a problem you have my number”
But as he reached the door she blurted out
“Yes, yes there is”
“Ok” he retorted and returned to the kitchen “what do
you need?”
There was a long pause and then without looking at
him she quietly said
“I want you to kiss me” Cathy said
“What?” he asked almost certain he had misheard
“I want you to kiss me” she repeated and he plopped
down on a chair.
If Dave was surprised by her request then it wasn’t
as much as a fraction of the surprise Cathy fely, in fact she was astonished.
Even though she had been wanting to do it ever since
his first visit to fix the shower.
Because even though he had not seen her she had
watched him through the partly opened bedroom door and from that moment on she
had thought of little else but kissing him.
And very very much so on that day, even more than
usual, because Gillian had to go to work early so she had to breakfast the
children and get them ready for school and she had to let Dave in and with him
in the house and needing access to every room she couldn’t hide herself away
after she dropped the girls at school.
She had always known that Dave fancied her, she had
known it for years and she also knew by the way he looked at her that he still
did.
“I’m not sure” he said not beleiving his good fortune.
“Oh please Dave” she entreated “I havent felt the
touch of a man lips since John passed and….”
“And?”
“And I know you want to” she said
“Ok” he agreed
They never made eye contact all during the
discussion, infact she never looked at him once, but after hearing his acquiescence
she sat on his lap with her back towards him.
As soon as her bum hit his lap she turned to face him
and leant in for the kiss.
Although Gillie Hopcroft was Cathy’s stepdaughter
it was only by virtue of the fact that she had married her stepfather John.
After losing her father
when she was four years old, she lost her mother four years after that and then
when she was 9 her stepfather John married Cathy, who she fell in love with
imediately and nothing that followed over the following 9 years altered that
love.
The only thing that came close
was when she made a startling discovery.
Cathy thought Gillie was a godsend, she was a
great help with the twins who she loved as if they were her own sisters and
they loved her equally.
Normally she got up first and got the twins
ready for the day to allow Cathy to lie in for a while.
But there were times when Gillian had to do
early shifts up at Mornington Field and Cathy had to get the girls ready herself.
She got back home from work
about midday and walked into the hall to be greeted by some unfamilar sounds
and she walked slowly towards the source of the sounds, which were eminating
from the kitchen, when she made the startling discovery.
Cathy was sitting on Dave’s lap with her arms wrapped
serpent like around his neck and she was snorting loudly as passion was taking
hold when they were discovered.
“What are you doing?” Gillian screamed “leave Mama
alone”
Dave was taken by surprise and broke away from
Cathy’s mouth.
“No don’t stop” Cathy begged “Please don’t stop”
“Mama?” Gillian quiried “you want him to?”
“I asked him to” she confessed
“Tell the truth” Dave instructed
“I… begged him” she admitted.
Within moments of her admittion Cathy was kissing him
again as Gillie stared wide eyed like a deer caught in the headlights.
When the kiss ended, Dave and Cathy looked at the
young girl who went beetroot red and ran out of the room.
Cathy sat on his lap and looked at her reflection in
the window and smiled weakly and thought she hadnt felt that alive for more
than two years and at the same moment Gillian
had run to the front door.
She was cross because she
had embarrassed herself, not that she was shocked to see her step mum kissing a
man, nor was she angry at the situation she loved Cathy and it was about time
she started to live again, the overwhelming emotion she felt when she watched
them was jealousy.
Not that she wanted to
kiss Dave and she certainly didn’t want to kiss Cathy, she didn’t love her in
that way, she was jelous of the intimacy and the tenderness, she wanted that
but she wanted it with someone else.
Gillian opened the front
door and was surprised to see Dave’s
apprentice, Owen Mumford, standing there.
“Oh it’s you” she said and threw herself into his arms, the very arms
she had pictured herself in a few minutes earlier.
After being discovered in
the act Cathy concluded the kiss with Dave but after Gillian had left the room
Cathy suddenly felt foolish and self concious
“I need to go and find Gillian” she said as Dave watched in silence unable to formulate a
response.
Half an hour later he was just leaving the
kitchen with his stuff when Cathy walked back in
“Is she ok?” he asked
“I couldn’t find her” she replied
“Oh”
“How are you feeling?” he asked
“Confused” she replied and turned away
Cathy sat on her bed and looked at herself in the mirror
she really hadnt felt that alive for more than two years but although his
intimate kiss was intensly electrifying the pleasure he had given her was a
double edged sword.
She wanted him but she felt guilty at betraying her
husbands memory despite how much she wanted him and how much she enjoyed the
kiss.
She dismissed Dave after the kiss and went in search
of her step daughter.
But while she was sitting alone on her bed lamenting what might have
been, she made the decision to live her life.
So the next day she phoned Dave to say that one of the radiators was
leaking and he said he would be round as soon as he could.
Cathy Maddocks was an attractive twenty nine
year old widow who lived with her six year old twins, Lily and Iris, and an 18 year old
step daughter Gillian.
Cathy’s husband John was much older than she
was when they married but he was the love of her life and she was absolutely
devastated when he died.
After the bottom fell out of her world she
spent the following two years following his passing in lonely celibacy.
But when the shower went on the blink she phoned her
brothers best friend Dave Plunkett, who had his own plumming business in
Shallowfield and a huge crush on her.
She was aware of that fact and avoided him on his
first two visits but on completeing the repair of her boiler she surprised them
both when she begged him to kiss her.
It was a wonderful kiss which didt diminish even
after they were discovered by Gillian.
However she dismissed Dave after the kiss and went in
search of her step daughter.
But while she was sitting alone on her bed lamenting what might have
been, she made the decision to live her life.
So the next day she phoned Dave to say that one of the radiators was leaking
and he said he would be round as soon as he could.
The leaky radiator was a fabrication, it was merely a device to get him
through the door.
While she waited she got herself dressed in preparation because getting
him through the door was only part of the plan and so what she was dressed in
was designed to keep him there.
But as she sat and waited for him doubts crept in with every tick off
the clock and her resolve began to ebb away.
So she opened a bottle of wine and poured herself a large glass.
By the time Dave knocked on the front door she was just poring her
third.
“Come and have a drink” she slurred when she’d opened the door
“Ok” he said doubtfully and followed her but he declined the drink and
waited for her to tell him why he was there.
In the end it was Dave who broke the silence.
“When I asked you how you were feeling the other day, you replied,
“Confused””
“I did” she agreed
“What about?”
“I was just confused about my feelings” she replied which he suspected
but he didn’t see the next bit coming
“And I wasn’t sure about yours”
“Really?” he asked “well you needn’t be, I’ve wanted you forever”
“Ok but I’m scared” Cathy admitted
“I can fix that” Dave said
“I’m scared” she admitted
“Why?” he asked “You want me and I want you”
“It’s my first time” she confessed “Since
John”
“It’s our first time” Dave said “but there would be a condition”
Cathy didn’t reply but she put her wine glass down and looked up
“What condition?”
“That you let go of the past” he replied “and no holding back”
“Shut up and kiss me” she said
So he obliged and it was everything she had hoped it would be and as he
stood holding her he asked
“So it’s really happening then?” he asked
“Yes but…”
“But what?” Dave asked
“I’m worried about Gillie” she said
“Is that all” he said and laughed
“I’m serious” she snapped “I’ve upset her badly”
“Come with me” he said and took hold of her hand and led her into the
lounge and over to the big window where he pulled the net curtain aside to
reveal the sight of little shy Gillian sitting in the front of the plumbers van
snogging Owens face off
“Oh” Cathy exclaimed “She’s ok then”
“It looks like it” he agreed
“In that case” she said a moment before she pushed him backwards onto
the sofa and leapt on top of him.
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