A River Path to Love

When the last shaking wave had passed away we fell apart.

Now was the time of doubt’s return, the moment of apprehension. I, who had set out to teach him, had experienced the act of love with an intensity I had never before known. The question was, would it continue?

Stephen had unleashed in me a passion I had never realised I had. He had, to use my previous metaphor, not only awakened the sleeping giant, but set him rampaging through me. How could I go on now without the deep satisfaction Stephen had given me?

My apprehension was unnecessary. Stephen had put his arms round me so as to hold my breasts in his hands. “Linda, it’s not just today is it? There will be more, won’t there? I love you and want you, but not just for today.”

I felt peace descend upon me. His question had answered mine. I spoke reassuringly to him; “No my dearest love, it is for as long as you want it to be.”

He murmured, “Thank you, Linda, my love.

We slept in post coital relaxation.

I awoke with a start. Stephen slumbered on and I looked over at the bedside clock. Within half an hour Jeff would probably be home. I shook Stephen awake and he came to with a groan.

“Darling, you’ve got to go, my husband will be home soon.”

That brought him fully awake quickly and there was a scramble to get him into his clothes.

He collected the Dalmatian who had continued her sleep, and at the front door he asked, “Shall I see you tomorrow, Linda?”

“No darling, I have to work tomorrow, but the next day I’ll meet you on the path about eight.”

I think we both found it equally hard not to see each other next day, but perhaps we both needed time to digest what had happened between us.

When Stephen had gone I a rushed around preparing the evening meal which was late, and Jeff asked why. I muttered something about having an afternoon nap and oversleeping, which was in part true, and Jeff responded, “Humph.”

Christmas came and went and in the days that followed Stephen and I came together as often as we could. We were totally besotted with each other and the intervals of not being together became increasingly painful. Another nagging concern was now making itself felt; soon Stephen would be starting his course at the college. This would probably mean less time to be together.

I had continued to occasionally attend the services at the church Ken and Delia had taken me to. It was here that I got an inspiration for overcoming the problem of being with Stephen.

One morning the minister made an appeal to the congregation for anyone with a spare room to take as a boarder students coming in from the country for tertiary education. “Why not?” I thought. Stephen came from a country town, his grandparents didn’t really have room for him and our house seemed full of unused rooms.

I put the matter to Jeff not so much as a question but as a statement. “They’re asking at the church for people to take in students from the country, I’ll be taking one in.”

I did not mention the gender of the student and I saw a light in Jeff’s eyes. “He’s thinking of some nice nubile girl he might be able to seduce,” I thought gleefully. “Won’t he get a surprise?”

Jeff played it carefully and said, “Well, so long as she (aha) doesn’t get in my way.”

That seemed to settle it and at the earliest opportunity I went to see Ken and Delia and put the matter to them.

Their response was interesting; Delia said, “I think that might be a good idea.” Ken winked at me and said, “I’m sure it will work out well for both of you.”

Stephen was not present so they said they would tell him as soon as he came in, and he would contact me.

It didn’t take long. Stephen must have telephoned me as soon as they told him about my suggestion. As his grandparents were nearby he had to be cautious, but I could detect the excitement in his voice. We arranged for him to move in two days later.

He came in the morning and we laid out his stuff in the room he was to occupy (some of the time). It was a spacious room and I had set it up to serve as a study and a bedroom. I had put a double bed in the room, and after lunch we tested it out for carnal gratification. It worked well, but I expected we would do most of our love making in my room.

To my amusement Jeff reacted just as I had expected. I saw the disappointment written all over his face at the sight of the very male Stephen. He shook hands with Stephen and muttered gruffly something about hoping he had settled in all right, then saying, “Got some work to do,” he left us.

It was two weeks before the academic year began and between my working hours, Stephen and I couldn’t leave each other alone. We touched, kissed hugged and coupled all over the house. By the middle of the second week I blush to admit that my vagina was so sore from the many penetrations, I had to ask Stephen to refrain from entering me for a couple of days. He was a bit depressed about this, but I consoled him with oral sex.

I did not wish Jeff to know at that stage what was happening between Stephen and me, but I suspected he would have to know some time, and he did.

It happened about three weeks after Stephen had begun his course at the college. Our couplings were less frequent by then, our initial craving for each other having calmed a little. It was then that I became aware that I was pregnant. It was no surprise to me since neither of us had taken precautions, and I think subconsciously this was what I had intended from the start. As for Stephen, he had several times said, “I wish we could make a baby together.”

I told Stephen and his response was a mixture of delight and concern for me. I reassured him I was a strong girl and was not worried about my ability to carry the child for the full term.

There was also the matter of Jeff. Sooner or later he would have to know, and I decided to make it sooner. I had no doubt that Jeff would want me out of the house, so it was better to make the move in the early stages of my pregnancy than later.

When I did tell him it didn’t register at first. It was often like that with him. I would say something to him and he would grunt, without having heard what I had said.

This time it took nearly half a minute to sink in, and then he did a sudden double-take and howled, “Did you say you’re pregnant?”

“Yes.”

“But you can’t be, we don’t…who’s the father…I want to know…”

He paused in mid verbal flight and I saw realisation dawn.

“My God, you’ve been fucking with that boy. You’ve let him stick a bloody kid in you…you…you…slut.”

“What does that make you, Jeff,” I asked, “An old roué?”

An old quotation came to mind and I spat it out at him; “The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the same disorders they allow themselves; and can readily discover some nice difference of age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.”

He stayed silent for a while, and then burst out again, “I’m not having you two in this house fucking behind my back, and I’m certainly not having his bastard in the place.”

“Good,” I said, “I shan’t be sorry get out of this edifice to your arrogance.”

“You’ll get nothing from me,” he yelled.

“You think not, Jeff. I should think again. I can get something for all the years of cleaning, washing, cooking and putting up with your philandering.”

I turned away, and as I left him he yelled after me, “Not one cent.”

He was wrong. I think he must have consulted with one of the department’s tame solicitors who probably pointed out that I did have a right to what is called, ”A payout.”

The offer when it came was better than I expected. In short, it provided Stephen and me with a modest dwelling, with some money left over. Another reason for the rapid collapse in Jeff’s resistance became clear within two weeks of Stephen and me moving out. One of Jeff’s women moved in.

The revelation having been made to Jeff, there now remained the two significant people in Stephen’s life, Ken and Delia. Stephen wanted to tell them about the situation himself, but I said I wanted to do it. It was after all me who had made the initial move to capture Stephen.

I was amazed at their response.

“We guessed what’s been going on, love,” Delia said. “We can see that there’s a problem with the age difference, but Stephen seems so happy, and he needs love. You’ve given it to him and we accept that.”

Touchingly, Stephen asked me to marry him. I refused, telling him that he had to remain free. He didn’t like this refusal, but I was adamant.

He was wonderfully tender with me during my pregnancy and was present at the birth when out came Sharon.

It was when Sharon was around six months old when the next twist in events occurred. I received a telephone call from the Drugs and Alcohol Rehabilitation Centre. They had had a real struggle to find me, but I suspect they got to me through Jeff. Lisa was in their care and was asking to see me.

Gig been arrested on a robbery with grievous bodily harm charge. He had been put in jail. Lisa narrowly avoid being arrested herself, but had gone on from one man to the next, and among other things, she had had an abortion.

She had been eventually picked up in a hopeless state wandering the streets. To service her habit she had worked as a prostitute, but had finally been unable to perform even the necessary function of opening her legs to whoever was willing to pay.

I went to see her and barely recognised her. She was gaunt in appearance, pasty faced, and with facial and body sores in the process of healing. She had developed what I can only describe as a “crafty look”, part defensive, part wheedling.

She flung her arms round me and in a voice that seemed to have difficulty forming speech said, “Oh mummy, I’ve missed you so much. Are you going to take me home, mummy?”

She knew nothing of what had happened in my life and I had no intention of telling her at that stage. I pointed out that I couldn’t take her home because her treatment wasn’t finished. She baulked at this and for a moment seemed about to be her old abusive self, then changed her mind and said, “You will take me home when it is finished, won’t you?”

I have to admit that the thought of Lisa entering my now harmonious existence did not appeal. I had to force myself to try and feel a mother’s concern for her and said, “We’ll see what the doctor’s have to say.”

I had been asked on arrival to see a Dr.Marks before I left, so I duly presented myself to him. He was a very “no nonsense” type, which I suppose was just as well in that sort of work.

He laid the situation before me quite bluntly.

“As well as her drug habit, Mrs. Prince, Lisa has a venereal disease. We’re trying to cure her of both. The venereal problem we are confident can be cleared up, the drug habit is another matter. Lisa has taken a whole array of drugs over time, in fact anything she could get her hands on. We are still trying to assess the damage that has occurred.”

“What we need to know is, are you willing to take her back once we’ve done all we can here? From here she can go to a halfway house, beyond that, well, if you won’t take her it’s hard to see what can be done.”

“Before you decide I must warn you that Lisa could quite easily revert to her drug habit, and the activities that might give her the money to feed her habit. In other words, it won’t be easy having her around the place.”

“You don’t have to decide right now, Mrs.Prince. Lisa will be here for some time yet, and then there’s the period in the halfway house. Talk it over with your husband.”

”I can just imagine what Jeff would say,” I thought, but knew I would have to talk with Stephen about the situation.

Stephen took the news with considerable composure considering he had no reason to expect this sort of invasion into our lives.

“She will have to live somewhere, and she is your daughter,” he said. “But how do you think she’ll take our relationship? And what about when she finds out she’s got a half-sister?”

“I shall be visiting her again,” I replied, “I think I may as well tell her then. The sooner the better, don’t you think?”

“Yes, and if you think it’ll be okay, what about if I come with you on the visit after that; as you say, ‘the sooner the better’.”

My next visit to Lisa was a week later. She was showing signs of improvement; her sores had almost cleared up and she even looked as if she had put on some weight.

I first told her that she could come home when her treatment was finished and she had been cleared by the halfway house. She poured out somewhat exaggerated thanks for this information.

I went on to tell her that I had left her father, was living in a different and smaller house, and I had a live in partner. Lisa wanted some details so I gave them to her frankly, including the age difference between Stephen and I. This seemed to activate some of Lisa’s old rude manner.

“Oh, mother’s got her self a toy boy, has she?” She said this in a sort of sing song way, and I clamped down quickly on this.

“No Lisa, I have not got myself a toy boy, I have a lover and we have already had one child and if I dared risk it at my age I’d have another with him. You see, we happen to love each other.”

Her face registered a sneer but she said nothing, so I asked, “Stephen would like to come and see you on my next visit, will that be all right?”

“Suppose so,” she replied sulkily, “I might as well meet my…what is he, my stepfather? Fancy having a stepfather the same age as myself, it sounds positively gruesome.”

We left it at that and it was on the next visit that the shape of things to come emerged, but I did not perceive it at the time.

Stephen and I went together, taking Sharon with us. The effect on Lisa of seeing Stephen was written all over her face. When we were alone for a while she expressed her feelings about him.

“Why didn’t you tell me he’s such a sexy hunk? I thought he’d be some pathetic wimp looking for a mummy, but I could go for him myself. Better watch out, I might steal him from you.”

I told her not to be so silly, but could not help noticing a little twinge of anxiety stab through me. I knew full well the great danger to my relationship with Stephen would be a younger woman.

During the course of the visit when all of us were present Lisa maintained a sort of teasing, even flirtatious, manner with Stephen. Sharon was due for her feed during the visit, so I opened the front of my dress and began to breast feed her.

Stephen had been fascinated by this activity and told me how beautiful he found it, but Lisa made her feelings clear when she exclaimed, “Yuk!”

The elements for the future were written clear; I just didn’t complete the reading of them properly.

I picked Lisa up from the halfway hostel and brought her home some weeks later. Her first response was to complain about the size of the house and the smallness of her room. I ignored this but felt it was not a good start to what might have been the re-establishment of our relationship.

From the start her manner towards Stephen was coquettish, touching him and mockingly referring to him as “stepfather”.

Stephen told her to stop that and call him Stephen, which she did.

The treatment she had undergone seemed to have worked well. I had been informed that the venereal problem had cleared up, but there might be permanent damage that would prevent her conceiving. I had the feeling that this would not bother Lisa.

She was in fact looking quite attractive but freed from the restraints of the past weeks, her old personality seemed to be reasserting itself, but in the milder form of mockery. In addition, the derisive threat that she might take Stephen from me began to emerge as a reality.

Lisa always seemed to be where Stephen was when he was at home. There was always the coquettish manner and the sly sexual innuendoes. The only place she did not seem to accompany him to was our bed.

Lisa had left school, or more accurately, dropped out, when she was sixteen. Not that it made much difference as she had played truant constantly for at least year before that. Thus she had little to offer educationally speaking, and had never as far as I knew worked; thus she had nothing to commend her to a potential employer.

This became a problem because it meant that she had nothing to do all day except hang around being bored and making a nuisance of her self. I tried to get her to help around the house, but she simply turned up her lip in a sneer and reiterated, “Boring, boring.” Her attitude to Sharon was derisive, frequently referring to her as “Mummy’s little brat.”

The next step was for Stephen and I to find money missing. We had not been accustomed to hiding cash away, and I must admit we had got careless in that respect. Stephen might ask, “I left ten dollars here, have you seen it?” Of course, I hadn’t. We both knew where it had gone, but said nothing.

When we took to securing our cash we noticed items from around the house disappeared, including the Celtic Cross Stephen had made me. I confronted Lisa about it, and received a blank stare followed by an abusive denial.

Her sexual advances to Stephen became more blatant. As I have said, it was the coming of a younger woman that I dreaded most in our relationship. That it should be my own daughter was almost more than I could bear.

Despite my insecurity in this matter, I said and did nothing as I saw her advances getting ever more lascivious. I felt that to intervene would be to humiliate myself, and as water must find its own level, so Stephen had to find his in relation to younger women and myself, and do so without restraint from me.

The critical moment came one night in bed when Stephen said to me, “Darling, I think we have to do something about Lisa. We’ve put up with the stealing because we can’t finally prove she did it, but something happened while you were out today. She offered herself to me for sex for a hundred dollars, and when I said ‘no’, she actually started to bargain, offering herself for seventy five then fifty dollars. It seems obvious to me she’s back on drugs and getting desperate for money. How is it going to be for Sharon growing up with that?”

My insecurities finally getting the better of me I asked, “Would you have taken her for no fee, Stephen?”

“You know bloody well I wouldn’t, Linda, I value what I’ve got with you too dearly.”

I obviously didn’t “know bloody well”, but a tremendous wave of relief came over me. What to do about Lisa was another matter that, like the first time, it resolved itself in tragic manner.

I confronted her about drugs and at first she denied it, but when I pressed her further the old Lisa came out in full flood. “Mind yer own fucking business,” etc. etc.

Within two days she was gone. Attempts to trace her through the police and Salvation Army came to nothing. Perhaps one day I shall receive another call from the Drugs and Alcohol people, or perhaps Lisa will disappear into that dark sub-world of wrecked lives.

For a while I engaged in “what might have been,” wondering how many other parents had seen the wreck of a child’s life. Stephen comforted me in his sage young way, but I suppose what I cannot but help see as my failing of Lisa will be always with me.

But as people are accustomed to say, “Life goes on.”

My own life goes on with my baby and Stephen. Looked at from the outside I suppose people see a woman with a young lover, from within I am ambivalent.

Was Stephen a boy who was seeking a mother substitute, and I happened along? Was I a woman who desired a son and Stephen happened along? Was it the craving for love we both experienced or the hunger for sexual fulfilment? Was it all of these?

I still have the dread that one day another, younger woman, will take Stephen from me. He shows no signs of straying yet and he is as sexually ardent with me as he ever was. I love him dearly, and the resolve that I made in the first flush of our sexual relationship is still with me. Come what may, I will be his lover, mother, friend or whatever he wants me to be to him.