Moments of Joy

Moments of Joy</p>

1
Had it been weeks or months since she had last seen him and seized the opportunity to talk with Ben and not be interrupted, or bothered, on how it would look? Ben had always been attentive, considerate, even infatuated with her, a woman with enviable social connections in the city, an involvement with children's charities and some would say a 'pillar of the community.'
But, keeping up such appearances took its toll on her and disguised what passed for married life with business man Frank Ballard. Her husband of some thirty years had divergent interests from her; an inescapable reality the older they got, and their lives diverged from a shared path once trodden when their kids were growing up. Her two boys were never any trouble, kept to themselves and seemed settled enough and nowhere near to getting the idea of getting married.
Ben Wallace had restored a semblance of normality during his courtship and then marriage to her only daughter, Charlotte, but that too had gone off the rails after only three years. Frank had cursed at them both, Ben in particular, for having put him to great expense when paying for a lavish wedding and reception, held at the golf and country club where he was a member and something of a star. His handicap was 'rock-solid,' and he always made the final cut in the bi-annual 'Pro-Am' tournaments that the club put on and drew in the crowds.
She would play the role of the supportive wife and never complain if Frank did not return the compliment and be in attendance at some charity event or, as now on this balmy summer's evening, at an art show.
'I should have known that you would be here,' he grinned, Ben's smile so stark and captivating as his bearded face was creased by his soft laugh.
'I love my art, as you know...or may remember.' Joy touched the sleeve of his jacket, could delight in his attention to detail in how he dressed. That habit had not changed although everything else in his life had been turned over. 'Walk around the show with me if you can?'
'I would have followed you if you hadn't asked,' he murmured, confiding in her. The colourful floral print jacket, navy blue slacks and frilly collared blouse was unmistakably Joy, the woman who had an irrepressible sense of style; never had a strand of her wavy black hair out of place, he eyes attentive, appraising and now showing a keen interest in his presence beside her. 'I'm more than a little glad to see you again...we never did say a proper goodbye after....' he shrugged, 'you know?'
She did 'know,' but a sense of propriety had kept her from giving voice to the reality that their paths might not cross as often as before, or maybe never again.
Joy caught a glimpse of them as they stood before the large, dominating, ornately framed mirror that made this part of the gallery seem so much larger. She was almost as tall as Ben and had dressed up for an evening out on her own. She had chosen to take a taxi for the short journey into town and hoping she would meet someone that she knew from the art appreciation society that she was a member of.
Somehow their reunion had to be made the most of, but she grimaced as a sip was taken from the glass of white wine she had taken from the tray that had been held out to her as she entered the gallery.
Ben laughed in that captivating ways of his when he saw her do that. 'My reaction too. We could go somewhere after this...a wine bar...have something to eat and drink...of our choosing. What do you say, or have you got to rush off home...go back to Frank?'
'He's away, on business...so he tells me, for the next two days...' she answers, her voice light and he is surprised how it sounds, the lack of interest to say any more on the matter.
They pause in front of a wide canvas depicting a game of tennis. She feels his hand to her jacket sleeve, and she steps a little further away from the picture. It is of doubles' players, the men in white trousers and shirts, the women in long black skirts and white blouses; the court a smear of light green and the background view, of distant hills, in heavier swathes of colours applied with a pallet knife.
'It's best to look at if from afar...the lack of intricate detail is lost, and your eye takes over...sees what you want or think to see...'
She laughs softly, agrees with him. 'I didn't think you to be so knowledgeable...'
'So we can keep each other company for a while longer...and take in the pictures?' he suggests, putting his glass down on a tray that a passing waitress is holding.
'Who says that I need that, company?' she answers on a pouted smile. 'We can talk and look at the paintings...Ben. It is good to see you...Frank's not around, as I've just told you, and so we make up for what happened. Let me think about where...'
'Fine...' he answers on a moment's look her way once more. The woman's slender, well-dressed, shares his bursa escort interest in what is on display. She wouldn't know, because he never spoke of it, that she had occupied a special place in his thoughts as his marriage to Charlotte fell apart.
They stop again, this time to look at a small picture of fishing smacks in the style of Lowry. It too is best seen from a few steps away. Ben again touches her arm to persuade Joy to stand beside him.
'No...I want to see how he creates the illusion of space...the boats on the sea...the simple style and use of a palette knife that still has depth...perspective. I can never get it right when I try to do that...'
Ben joins her, loves her soft sing-song voice and breathes in Joy's scent. She had always beguiled him, her interests and what she so often talked about so knowledgeably, often with him, provoking the thought that she and Frank had such divergent interests and that he had rarely seen them together at a function such as this.
'I've got a small canvas of his in my office...another at home, in the apartment.' He looked around them and checked if he would be overheard. 'You could come back and see it...have a drink...see how I live now?'
His eyes are only on her and she wonders how she could even refuse him. It even occurs to her that he is lost and wants a touchstone, or a reminder, of how it once was between them.
'What a thing to ask a married woman,' she laughed, softly, but looking coyly at him. 'You were never slow to let your feelings show...Ben.'
They walk on again.
'And look where it got me...' he answered her, without bitterness. It was only the truth of how his divorce from Joy's daughter had cost him dear.
She felt disconcerted on seeing his eyes drift over her, as if she was being undressed, imagining what would be discovered if he succeeded in doing that. The man beside her, in his lightweight summer suit, the oatmeal-coloured fabric a perfect complement to his sky-blue shirt open at the neck, had his confident ways. Ben's touch, only to be felt to her sleeve and not her hand or skin, aroused a riot of conflicting emotions.
He was free and could stray but could she; could she concede to what had, at other times and some months ago, been only wayward imaginings when life with Frank became difficult to get through, let alone endure. Charlotte never did say what had brought them to seeking a divorce, but it could not have been for reasons of his betrayal of her trust; attentive as he could so often be.
After all, Charlotte had left him, not the other way about. The evening's art show had reunited them, and it felt too early to leave for home, to take a cab back to an empty, echoing house. Meeting Ben again, to be reunited with the man some years younger than she, and that she chose not to dwell on, was a welcome surprise and no longer limited, or bounded, by what had once been family niceties.
She saw his fingers turn the pages of the thin catalogue, then saw Ben retrace his steps towards her.
'There's not much else to see...here....whereas...?'
'Stop it! Stop looking at me and trying to persuade me to have a drink somewhere...'
'I've met you again, Joy...don't want it to end here and in this place. We can eat, have a drink...and I won't talk shop...or rake over things, I promise. I want to move on from that, just as I much as I think that you do.'
She met again that wondering look upon her, saw his smile, heard the lightness in his persuasive voice.
'And I won't go over all that has happened...since we were last together,' she affirmed on stepping away from an exhibit that had interested her, if only for a moment. Her thoughts kept spooling forward and back on where the evening, and being reunited with him, would take her.
'Unless how we are takes us there...' he confided. Ben was seen to turn the list of works on display into a tube before stuffing it into a side pocket of his suit jacket.
'I've seen enough...'
Right now, with visitors to the gallery gathered all around them, she still felt to be the centre of his attention and could not deny that he was attracted to her, that he was now free to pursue her if she gave him the least encouragement, the buzz of voices all around them a spur. But was it for her to relent and to pursue what she felt was on his mind or for her to withdraw? The rush of excitement, arousal even, that she felt in her belly was enough; the palpable ache in her breasts as she thought of what his wonderful lips would do to them.
Just how had this hare been set running, now of all times, when they had been only too proper and restrained, rightly, for such a long time before his life with Charlotte had unravelled so spectacularly?
Joy sensed that their evening together would be different from all that had gone before. Her mind had already strayed from a known path, and she was dismayed at not feeling the least bit guilty or reluctant bursa escort to admit that it was so.
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2
She had rebuked him for buying it, a small bouquet of flowers that was little more than a buttonhole with the stems wrapped in foil, and that the street-trader, out late, thrust into her hands and with Joy taken completely off-guard. She had been chattering and enjoying herself, freed of any constraints and in the company of a man she had been undoubtedly fond of.
'For luck,' the gypsy woman had told them, unbothered by how it looked, a woman out for the evening with a younger guy.
He had said nothing of it and Joy had fallen into step beside him. She did nothing to display any bond and that easy and laughing conversation, in the bistro and again as they strolled through the city's streets lit up by garish shopfronts, had made possible.
Now, Ben eased the Audi A3 cabriolet into his allotted parking bay in the underground car park of his apartment block, the still noisy city streets they had driven through no longer to be heard.
'I really shouldn't be here...Ben,' she said, twisting in her seat and unfastening the seat belt. It slipped smoothly away from her. The sunflower yellow car would be like a beacon outside her home when he drove her there. She ran fingers through the tumble of her hair, a bangled bracelet sliding over her slender wrist.
Ben smiled softly, his eyes betraying his confidence. 'I did ask you several times...'
'And now I'm here...'
'Yes, and for that I'm glad...we remained friends even through my tough times with Charlotte...I kept my feelings to myself...'
'And now?' she asked needlessly.
He brushed fingers over her throat as he spoke and held Joy's startled look upon him. 'I'm not going to deny that you took a hold in me when I was going through all of that...and I couldn't say anything.'
'But you can do so now?' she smiled coyly and looking his way on a captivating tilt of her head.
'Yes...I'd like to do that...now.'
He placed a hand on her thigh, moved it slowly until he pressed it to her lap. She squirmed, felt the first flush of moisture his touch aroused in her pussy and his words had set her thinking of; him being taken to her, to have his fingers in her then his hard dick. She imagined how it would feel to have her vagina's walls caressed by what he would bring, how it would feel to have Ben's breaths on her skin, on her breasts, her face, shoulders and throat, to feel the lustful energy of his taking of her and how she would respond.
'We can't...we can't, Ben,' she breathed haltingly, squirming as he leant closer and pressed his lips to her achingly hard nipples that could be seen pressing against the silken fabric of her blouse. Her body was willing; her mind had still to fully accept what was happening, what she was being coaxed into doing with him after such a short re-acquaintance.
'We're no strangers to what we feel...for each other, Joy, are we?'
That he should put it into words, finally confess what she had known may have been at work in him for some time and that she had not dared to concede to, good as he so often made her feel. She even wondered if Ben had a roving eye and that it was him playing away from home that had brought his marriage to her daughter crashing down. She thought it unlikely, and Charlotte would have said something. She had failed to do so; in which case they were each stepping out on a new path where it concerned them alone.
Would she dare to consider pursuing an affair and then return to her normal life? And what would Ben return to if she allowed him to follow through and she succumbed to his ways? It all ran counter to the woman she thought herself to be, but seduction by a good-looking and successful young man might be something that she would enjoy. Frank was good with her, in bed, when he sought it of her, but the thought of straying, emotionally, then 'doing it' would take her out of the bounded world that life had become.
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3
The furnishings in his apartment, the pictures and the lamps on small tables set against the walls, the rugs and the plain but bright colours of soft furnishings...they all revealed the tastes of the man whom she now saw shrug off his jacket and throw it casually over a chair.
'Take yours off too,' he murmured as Ben stood behind her and eased the colourful jacket from her shoulders and laid it on top of his clothes as if it was the most natural thing for him to do. He breathed in slowly as she looked from side to side to see what he would do. 'I always loved your scent...'
She chose no other, sprayed it to the insides of her wrists, to her throat and, she now realised as he drew her to him, that she had also sprayed it to her breastbone. The soft floral scent would be breathed in the closer she was embraced, undressed and then loved if she allowed him that and the bursa eskort look of his eyes upon her, as she twisted in his embrace, made clear.
'I've...I've wanted to hold you and share different moments with you,' he murmured, pressing his lips to her throat and Joy catching sight of herself in the mirror that hung in an alcove set between the bookshelves along one wall. 'I'll let you go...if it's all too much for you?'
'No...it's not!' she heard herself say, reaching behind her and feeling his erection, its size a shock and Ben's state of arousal making her weak. Just the thought of her with him, what might follow, had been enough to arouse him. What had she done during the evening to make him be the way he now was?
Joy squirmed in his embrace as Ben's hands cupped her breasts, simply held them as the fabric of her blouse was smoothed over their rounded shape. She shivered and met his slow kiss that became deeper. He hungered for her, and she did nothing to prevent his undressing of her in the soft light that filled the room.
'Not here...not here,' she moaned, stilling his questing touches as she saw in the mirror how they were together. He continued in his undressing off her and she twisted to tug loose his shirt, fumbled for the buttons before she exposed his chest to her gaze and press of moist lips to his skin. He lifted his shirt away even as she shrugged loose her blouse; shivered on feeling his fingers then lips to the swell of her breasts, shaped so well by her lacy bra. 'Ben...Ben!'
'They're so firm and round...so beautiful,' he kissed and reaching for the zip fastening of her slacks that shaped her legs so well, lent them a dancer's grace. She shivered as he crouched down and slipped them over her slender, yet fleshy, thighs and onto the floor. 'I'm going to love...love with... the woman I see and may touch now...every glorious part of her...'
'Ben...Ben...that you can say such wonderful things to me...' she smiled weakly, bending to kiss his upturned face.
'Say them to the woman I see...' Ben wondered on it, how his ex-wife could be so very different in character from the woman he now ached to pursue, to take to bed and delight in.
His lips traced a path over her thighs; his fingers caressed her slicked heat through her panties before he pressed his nose into her slit, had her feel his warm breaths to her mons.
Joy squirmed, became lost in the wildness of the moment as she tugged on his hair to keep these wanton attentions upon her; squirmed as his fingers tugged aside the hem of her panties and slicked her pussy's wet lips.
'Ben....Ben...not that too!'
His tongue was in her as he tugged away her panties and she felt his hands on her thighs, coaxed her to open the way to his claims, here in the living room and she bucking her hips as his taking of her with mouth and tongue began.
'I love it...love it that you haven't shaved it all away..' she heard him groan, his breaths exciting her as much as the play of his tongue and fingers, the tug on her pubic hair again resumed.
'Ben...Ben...Ben...darling man! We've no time for it all!' she cried out, her tugs on his hair making him stand up, but not before he had traced a path of kisses over her belly as she reached behind her back and tugged loose the two clip fastenings of her bra. It fell onto his upturned face, and she laughed softly in dismay and out of pleasure as his mouth finally claimed them. 'Now...bring it to me...in me, all that you have....take me on a bed...not here!'
She had time to grip that pole of erect flesh; felt its tip brush over her belly before he lifted her to him like a weightless rag doll and met his deep hungering kisses. She wrapped her legs about his waist and felt his penis slide over her pussy's lips as his hands clamped her buttocks to keep her to him. As they stumbled and stopped, kissed breathlessly and hungering for it all, she felt the domed tip at her opening, then part her lips and nestle between them. Joy rose and fell on him, enough to set her heart racing and as a prelude to him being fully enveloped with breathless urgency.
'This is crazy...crazy...madness!' she gasped, tearing her mouth form his lips and clinging to him, felt Ben enter her body, enough, to have her know that they were as one now; two people with no secrets and feeling a raging lust for each other. The thought of this happening had made her wet during the drive to his place; had nearly made her gush out of a raging anticipation. Now, she rose and fell slowly, shared in breaths of effort and dismay as Ben slipped inexorably deeper inside her body, his strength matched by his hungering for her.
Ben stopped at the edge of his wide bed and paused. He then pulled out of her, and she was cast down upon it, her legs splayed wide and her pussy open to his gaze. She felt empty, suddenly bereft of him and reached out, tugged his head down to her and he began to taste her with lips and tongue.
'Not for long...I want you back in me!' she cried out, lifting her hips to meet the invasion of her body by his fingers and flickering tongue. He lapped at her opening, poked his tongue tip into her and she gasped out of pleasure, pulled on his head to keep him to her.