Emma Benson had an essay to write. A small book of literary criticism lay unopened on the kitchen table along with a cold cup of coffee and Emma’s laptop, which hummed softly as the screen saver displayed the photos from her picture file. A photo from her wedding faded away gradually to be replaced by a blurred shot of a sunset taken with her phone, which in turn was replaced by one of her husband, David, while on honeymoon, standing on the balcony of their hotel room. Suddenly the laptop timed out and shut itself down. The sun-filled room fell silent.

She lay on her beach towel on the grass in the backyard.

An hour earlier an Emma full of good intentions had seated herself at the kitchen table with her notes opened on her laptop. She had read the required texts. She had switched off her phone and had made herself a coffee which steamed within reach. But then she had checked her messages, had read the front page of three newspapers, had opened and scanned through an erotic story she was writing for David, had searched for and found photos she had taken of him which were not in her regular picture folder, but were buried in a locked file. There was a subfolder to this file, with other photos in it, photos of them both and she opened these too.

While flicking through, her mind had drifted a long way from the topic of her essay. There were other buried files, she remembered. Files her husband had never seen. Photos and videos. Memories best hidden from his eyes. She drifted further and further from the task at hand. She grew steadily more agitated and could not sit still. She had to close the files and step away from the computer.

Emma’s priorities had changed then. Her labours were postponed indefinitely. The essay no
longer seemed as interesting, or important, or as pressing as it once had.

She changed into her bikini, covered herself in suncream, spread out her towel on the grass and, as she had done many times before, lay on her front and beckoned the sun down upon her.

An hour later, Emma still lay on her beach towel on the grass in the backyard. Her face was pressed against the soft towelling and her eyes were closed. The leaves of the huge eucalypt which shaded the back portion of her garden were disturbed by a slight but persistent breeze and someone’s wind chimes were jingling nearby. The bikini-clad truant lay in the direct sunlight by the fence out of the draught. A crow launched itself from the eucalypt and cried out far above her as it beat its wings and took flight, crying again and again. The sound, becoming more and more distant, petered out and was exchanged for the rhythmic pock-pock of her neighbour’s tennis ball, now hitting the racquet and now the wall. Occasionally the direction of the breeze would change, bringing muted noises of the workmen renovating a house a block away.

All of these sounds played upon her mind,
bearing her in and then out of her daydreams like the tide upon the shore. These daydreams were sweet to her. Quite naturally, her mind had wandered back to the images she had seen. Quite naturally, too, her mind had moved beyond this paucity of remembrance ensnared in hastily taken photos, or in minutes of shaky, poorly lit home video. A deeper reservoir of memories revealed itself to her. Some were reminiscences, some were fictions but most were a seamless mingling of the two. In their coming and going they were altered, emphasis was shifted, episodes were repeated, corrected, bettered, beguiling her senses with newly formed sights and sounds and sensations. Her whole body was responding to the play of her mind. The flesh was deceived.

Having found a suitable theme for idle contemplation, and having moved her hand so that she might touch herself without fear of exposure, Emma drifted off into that place between wakefulness and sleep, which is, when properly directed, a delicious state of near permanent arousal.

Jason dropped over the shared pine paling fence, landed on the soft grass and steadied himself.
He noticed that Emma was lying in a bikini on a towel by the table and chairs not two metres away. A closed book and a bottle of 30+ lay beside her.

‘Sorry, Mrs Benson, I didn’t know you were home,’ he said.

Emma was jolted out of her daydreams.

‘Shit! Jason. You frightened me,’ she said, lifting her head up from the towel to make eye contact and moving her hand from under her. The sun was bright. She lay her head back down and watched his ankles through her eyelashes.

‘I didn’t know you were here. I lost my ball,’ he said, and cast a cursory glance around the garden in search of it. He glimpsed the bare legs, the soft white feet, the small but curvaceous backside barely covered by a white bikini bottom and the long smooth back, but hardly considered them. Pressing and immediate thoughts about the development of his serve and the possibility of switching from cricket to tennis next year hampered his appreciation of these sights. Jason’s brain was slow to shift between scenes. Finally, his gaze returned to Emma. And he recognised that she had a beautiful body.

‘You could use the gate. That fence is shaky enough as it is without your muscled frame
swinging over it,’ she mumbled as she closed her eyes.

‘Sorry.’ He remained still. She could sense him looking at her. She thought about his face as it might look if he was to see her naked. She wondered if Jason had thought about her that way. She waited a time before she felt the silence had lasted long enough for him to have had his fill of her body.

‘What are you waiting for? I’m not going to help you. Besides I want to lie here and watch you,’ she said, laughing and lifting her shoulders and head to look at him properly. She rested on her elbows with her hands out before her like the sphinx. Her breasts hung in her bikini. Jason did not avert his eyes as an older man might. Emma noticed this and found the youthful naivety of his stare exciting. Her mood shifted from her sleepy indefinite arousal to something more pressing.

‘How old are you? I forget,’ she asked.

‘Eighteen.’

‘Did you become an adult without telling me?’

‘You were at the party!’ he said smiling. He stood on the grass in bare feet, naked but for a small pair of board shorts. Emma watched him; he was growing more and more self-conscious.
She knew she was messing with him. She liked the way his body was developing. He was a very attractive boy who would probably fill out too much as he grew older but now he was lean and toned. She habitually teased him about his looks but it wasn’t all play, she genuinely admired his adolescent beauty.

‘Have you come over for me or the ball?’

‘I didn’t know you were home.’

‘I’m always home, Jason,’ she said, smiling brightly.

‘Did you see where the ball went?’

‘Nope,’ she said and looked around. Emma’s garden was large and mostly lawn with garden beds along the edges. She and David were planning to get a landscape architect in; they had been planning to for ages. She looked over into the worst part of the garden under the shade of the eucalypt and saw the ball under a fern. She had no intention of helping him out. He had leapt into her languorous afternoon and in doing so had interrupted an intimate and pleasurable run of imaginary sexual encounters.

Till this moment Jason had only ever drawn a casual appraisal from Emma. He had always remained within his yard, so to speak. He was
always the son of Simon and Anne, or the boy next door. But by chance, Jason had grown up and landed squarely in Emma’s fantasies. She saw him afresh.

Jason walked around the lawn looking into the mess of a garden. He glanced at Emma over his shoulder and saw her watching him. She blew him a kiss.

‘Found it!’ he said. She watched him crawl under the fern and pick it up. His body was deeply tanned and as he leant over and stretched out his arm to take hold of the ball his young butt looked good enough, Emma surmised, to eat. She took a mental snapshot.

Jason padded across the grass towards her.

‘Don’t tell Mum and Dad you saw me,’ he said.

‘My lips are sealed,’ said Emma, trying in vain to come up with a reason for him to stay. She watched him walk to the side of the house and disappear down the path. Moments later she heard the sound of his ball hitting the racquet and then the wall.

Emma lay where she was for another ten minutes or so, but now the sound of his tennis ball was intrusive. Its rhythm kept the image of the young man before her eyes, whether they were closed or
open. She tried to think of other things. She tried to recapture the mood she was enjoying before the interruption but nothing would cure her of the strange and uncomfortable malady brought on by his momentary visit.

Other books

Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine by Michelle Campos

Forget Me Knot by Sue Margolis

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Roman - The Fall of Britannia by K. M. Ashman

The Hijack by Duncan Falconer

Hostile Fire by Keith Douglass

All We Are (8th Sin Book 2) by Holly Hood

Even In Darkness (Between) by Tefft, Cyndi

World After by Susan Ee

Pregnant King, The by Pattanaik, Devdutt