1 comments/ 29986 views/ 1 favorites When Tony met Monica By: 130260 (A companion story to Gemma) It was to be a special day for Tony for two important reasons, Michaela would be arriving back home after completing her finals and he would be meeting Monica in person for the first time. They had already exchanged emails and photographs and had several warm and affectionate phone conversations. But he still felt the usual twinge of anxiety whenever he thought about their first meeting, even though he was keen to meet her in the flesh after what he had seen of her in her photographs. He also felt anxious about telling Michaela, Gareth and Alex about how he had been spending his time while they had been away at their respective colleges, and about his hopes for the family's future that arose from his activities. His consciousness of how much his children had been through since their mother had died five years previously and his determination to ensure that there would no further upsets for them was central to all he did. Not only had they lost their mother, they had nearly lost their father three years later when he almost died of heart disease and been clinically dead for nearly a minute during the emergency operation that saved his life. He had been spared then but now he lived with a permanent shadow hanging over his future. Twice he had had to rebuild himself emotionally. Then for a while afterwards he had made caring and being there for his children his only concern in life. Partly in gratitude for the love and they had given him, far beyond their years, when he was too emotionally wrecked to be a father and a mother to them, partly to salve his desperate loneliness without Helen. But eventually his own desire to have love and companionship again had overcome him. He had finally summoned the courage to date again, which led by chance to him meeting Gemma, a young artist not much older than Michaela. Their relationship had lasted a few weeks before ending sadly but amicably when she decided she couldn't commit herself to him because of their age difference. To make it up to him she had set him up with a close friend of her mother's, also widowed five years ago, and that was how he had come to be meeting Monica that evening. He used his flexitime to come home earlier for Michaela's homecoming to find she had arrived half an hour before. She and several friends with homes in the same general area had clubbed together for a hire van to get them and their gear back from their various colleges. Strange sounds emanated from the DVD player as she wandered around the lounge in a rumpled maroon sweatshirt, tattered jeans and thick grey socks whilst replenishing herself alternately from a large mug of tea in one hand and a bacon sandwich the size of a telephone directory in the other. He had never understood how she never changed from looking like she could make a good living as a Kylie Minogue look-alike. "Want one, Dad?" she managed to mumble through a mouthful as she waved the remnant in his general direction. They both preferred low-key homecomings. "Sounds good and smells wonderful Sweetheart," he smiled, kissing her cheek and apprehending several fugitive crumbs as he did so, "But I need to save my appetite for tonight." "Are you going out?" Her enquiry was entirely accepting and without a trace of suspicion or resentment, but he felt a twist of anxiety in his stomach as he realised that he would have to start filling his children in on the direction his life was beginning to go in. He loved his three children equally and without favouritism whilst at the same time enjoying a different relationship with each. His close bond with Gareth was based on their shared maleness, their love of sport, a similar brand of slightly off-the-wall humour and the fact that his son at each stage of his life reminded him so much of himself at the same age. With Alex, Gareth's younger twin sister, he shared a love of science and for communicating its actual and potential good, a pleasure in enquiry and discovery for its own sake and a deep desire for fairness and justice in all things. But the relationship he had with Michaela had come to be of special importance to him because she was the one most like their mother in appearance and character. She had inherited Helen's artistic talent and temperament and her wholehearted, generous and spontaneous response to all she encountered and experienced. It was because of this that he wanted her to be the one he shared his thoughts with first. "Yes, but I've got time for a natter before I start getting ready." He hoped this would be a good lead-in to their conversation, but he was totally derailed by her next question. "Are you going to see Gemma?" How on Earth did she know? He panicked inwardly for a second before realising that the innocent way in which she had asked the question indicated that she had no idea of it's significance. Hoping to get some kind of clarification he dissembled. "Sorry, love?" "Is Gemma some new jazz singer you're going to see? I just happened to see her name on one of your new CDs you hadn't put away yet." His lifelong love of jazz had been a lifesaver during the years of his recovery and rehabilitation. For a second he was tempted to take this unexpected opportunity to obscure the truth but he resisted it. Whatever course and shape their life would take, it had to be based on truth and openness from the start. "No, love," he replied, looking straight at her. "She isn't a jazz singer. She was my girlfriend for a while until several weeks ago. I'd decided to start dating again and she was my first date. This isn't a music CD; it's a DVD of pictures of her, which I'd meant to put away. I'm sorry for not telling you. I was afraid you'd be upset and you'd think I was trying to replace your Mum." "Oh Dad!" she exclaimed as she rushed over and hugged me. "I'm not upset about you wanting a girlfriend and I know you'd never mean for anyone to try and take Mum's place. Only that you were afraid to tell me." "Didn't we used to have these kinds of conversations in reverse?" he smiled weakly, amazed and thankful for her maturity, as they hugged each other. "We're all growing Dad." Her simple statement needed nothing more. "Was she nice? Can I see some of her pictures? They're not mucky are they?" Her questions tumbled out in a kaleidoscope of thoughts, concerns and expressions just as if it were Helen speaking. "You can see for yourself and they're certainly not mucky. Do you remember June who always used to photograph you in your stage school costumes? She took them when we visited her studio a few weeks ago. Gemma had always wanted to be a ballerina so we dressed her up as one." A random picture came up on the plasma TV. "Dad, she's lovely!" she exclaimed. Gemma was in full length. She was dressed in her white classical tutu with the short skirt, her long bare legs flowing down to her feet looking lovely in her white satin ballet shoes with the ribbons cherishing her slender ankles. One leg was straight with her foot flat on the floor, while her other leg was bent so she could point her foot and rest the pointed tip of her ballet shoe on the floor. She was leaning back against the barre with her elbows resting on it. Her auburn hair flowed in long, straight tresses framing her face and draping her shoulders. Her head was tilted back as if she was about to laugh and her smile beamed happiness and her eyes were wide with delight and shining with pleasure. The honey sparkle of her freckles spread across her face and body glowed against her pale skin thanks to June's mastery of studio lighting. He felt a lump in his throat at the sight and of the memory. "I'm sorry things didn't work out for you Dad." She squeezed my hand. "Are you going out with someone new tonight?" He explained to her how Gemma had persuaded Monica to make contact with him. Then he asked her a question that had been gnawing away at him inside. "I know it's really early days but, just supposing that it works out for Monica and I, how would you feel if we wanted to get married?" She put her arm around his waist as they sat together on the sofa and looked at him tenderly. "I hate it that you're lonely Dad. No one should be lonely and everyone needs a special love of their own. I'm so grateful that you've given us the time we needed to get over Mum dying. But for months now we've been saying wouldn't it be great if you found someone and it's a shame you weren't doing anything. And all this time you were doing something. Isn't that great! I'm so proud of you" His stomach churned and he could hardly stop himself from crying because of the poignancy wrapped within the love and the innocent acceptance her words communicated to him. "You mean that Gareth and Alex feel the same?" "Of course they do." "Why didn't any of you ever talk to me about it and tell me you feel that way?" "We didn't want to make you feel we were pressurising you into doing something you weren't ready for or didn't want to do?" "Come here You Great Pudding!" He hugged her even closer this time. He always called her that at especially emotional moments, like saying goodbye on her first day at University, which now seemed like a lifetime ago. His emotions were now totally in turmoil. If he had only known how willingly his children would have accepted her, he would have had a much better chance of persuading Gemma to stay with him. She might still have balked at their age difference but she would not have needed to fear becoming a hate figure to them or being responsible for driving them apart from him. But then he wouldn't now have the prospect of meeting Monica, the woman who had captivated him from the moment he had first seen her photograph and who had been working her way deeper into his affectionate longing with each email and phone call they had exchanged since her first email just a week ago. ********** Tony straightened his tie as he stood at Monica's front door before ringing the doorbell. He was wearing his favourite Italian dark grey two piece suit with a dark blue shirt, maroon tie and very stylish loafers. He loved Italian style and being smartly turned out always gave him confidence whenever he needed a boost. He already felt he knew her well from their previous communication but there was always that frisson of uncertainty in the final moments before the first sight of someone new. She answered the door and his whole being was turned up a notch at the sight of her. She wore a beautifully styled and perfectly fitting jade green velvet dress in 1920's style with a low waist and a crisply pleated skirt. The material seemed to flow down her gorgeous hourglass figure from her classically sculpted shoulders and celebrate the curvaceous beauty of her breasts, hips and bottom. The low rounded neck showed an enticing prelude of her generous cleavage while the skirt came down to an attractive length above her knees and drew his admiring gaze to her long and shapely legs and her long narrow feet in low-heeled court shoes in matching colour. The colour of her outfit perfectly complemented her sandy blonde hair that framed her face in gentle waves before coming to rest on her shoulders and her bewitching hazel eyes that he had already come to love so much and which shone with delight as she beheld him. She had dreamed of a moment like this for years and now it was finally happening for her she could hardly stop from hugging herself as she took in the sight of the well dressed, handsomely burly man smiling at her as he proffered a huge bouquet of flowers. "You look wonderful Tony. Thank you for taking so much trouble for me. I do love it when a man dresses well. And these flowers are so beautiful." "And thank you for all the beauty you've brought into my life already, which has just been multiplied a thousand times over," he smiled as he handed her the huge arrangement of lilies with their decorative foliage. Cradling the flowers she took his hand and their hearts leaped in unison as they kissed for the first time. She drew him inside and he was greeted by the comfortably stylish interior that was somehow suffused with an atmosphere of peace and calm and also by a mouth-watering aroma drifting from the kitchen. "Would you like some help in the kitchen?" he asked her. Monica had always thought that how a couple shared the simple and mundane tasks of life was a good indicator of how close they were. She was completely satisfied on that score. After about a minute they were laying and arranging things and adjusting temperatures and setting out and serving, while keeping up a constant conversation on all manner of mutual interests, as if they had been doing it together for a lifetime. "Can I ask you Darling?" he said gently taking her hand during a lull in the conversation, "Is Gemma happy?" "She's very happy My Love. It's wonderful that you care about her so much. Thanks to you she's become the woman she was always meant to be and that makes me so happy. She's even started going to ballet classes with me after all the years I've tried persuading her to come. She says she's determined to dance on her toes before she's thirty." "I've given her all I was meant to give. Now I give everything to you My Darling." They shared a long, loving embrace as he kissed her between her eyes. Then their conversation settled back into more comfortable concerns. "You've cooked this seafood to perfection," he said with knowledgeable appreciation, having eaten in many fine seafood restaurants around the world, after trying a mouthful of calamare. "Peter's Spanish grandmother gave me lots of tips. She was a formidable old bird when I first visited her soon after we married. We became friends through cooking. She showed me how to make the perfect paella and I got her making the ultimate shepherd's pie. She was wonderful after that." As they were both widowed they could talk freely about their loss. "How long did you have to wait before you knew he hadn't survived," he asked gently. "I was far more fortunate than many people in that his body was found and identified after three days. He had my last letter in his pocket. Whenever he was away on a long trip I would only email him about things he needed to know immediately. For the really important things I would write to him. We buried him still holding it." She remained smiling but a sad and faraway look came into her eyes as, his heart overflowing with love and fellow feeling, he reached across the dining table and took her hands in his. Her eyes softened with responding love and she recollected herself. "But I only had to wait for three days. You had to endure for four months." "But at least I could share her last moments and tell her I loved her and hear her say ‘I love you' as she died. After she died I found a scrapbook I never knew she had. She had pressed a single flower from every bunch of flowers I had ever given her and put them in the book and the memories that came back as I looked at them tore me apart then. But now it's one of the most precious things I have of hers. I'm so sorry you lost Peter with no time to be prepared and no chance to say goodbye." "That was the hardest thing of all to have to bear. But I was given strength to bear it." "We both came through." "And now we've been given each other." ********** He came round to her side of the table and as she rose with eager instinct in response to his approach he took her head in his hands and began to kiss the milky chocolate coloured skin of her birthmark that covered much of the right side of her face, while he caressed the other side of her face and stroked her hair. Straight away he discovered how receptive and responsive she was to him. Even his slightest touch of her brought from her a gasp or a sigh or, which excited him most of all, a little sound in her throat that sounded like the mew of a kitten. Meanwhile she thrilled to the feel of his dark curly hair as she combed her fingers through it and the thickset power in the muscles and sinews of his broad neck. As he kissed her he reached behind her and slowly undid the zip of her dress. He saw her back reflected in a mirror and he delighted in the sight of the vee shape of her exposed skin, her tensing muscles bridged by the black stretchy girth of her bra, which he quickly parted. He ran his hands over her bare back as she pulled his shirt out from inside his waistband so she could feel the ridge of his spine. They sat down on the sofa and enfolded each other in their passionate embrace as they slipped off their shoes and she delighted in rubbing her bare feet on the hair of his legs between his socks and his trouser bottoms. "How do you keep yourself so fantastic?" he asked in between the deep breaths of his desire for her as he smoothed his hands over the gorgeous curves of her waist and hips. "I'm blessed with a good constitution that I show I'm for grateful for by taking care of it. I have a sensible diet instead of dieting, I drink for pleasure instead of proving a point, and I enjoy my body instead of beating it into submission. I work out, I do ballet and yoga, I play tennis and badminton, I love walking and cycling. Being left enough money by my husband to not have to work helps too. You look as if you can still come on off the subs' bench and run in a couple of tries yourself." After a minute of stroking each other up and down their spines and making each other shiver with pleasure she pulled back slightly from his kiss. "The one part of lovemaking I've never got on with is all that fumbling with buttons, zips and fasteners. I prefer to slip into something….easier to manage. What can I wear that will give you special pleasure Darling?" "Will you show me how you look when you're dressed for ballet?" The eager expression in his voice matched that in his eyes as he gazed hungrily at her. "I'll call you up when I'm ready," she whispered, with a smile that would have seduced him if he'd been a statue. "Men do need their little fetishes," she smiled to herself and remembered how Peter had always loved and been so turned on by the sight of her fingernails, perfectly manicured and painted bright red, as she stroked him firm. She didn't scamper up the stairs two at a time in her eagerness like Helen. Nor did she skip upstairs in girlish excitement like Gemma. She seemed almost to glide upstairs, her hand sliding up the rail as she drew it up after her and as she looked back seductively over her shoulder at him. She eased herself out of her dress and, panting in her excitement, took off her bra and pants and then pulled and rolled on a pair of her ballet tights, poured herself and nestled her breasts into her most figure-hugging and sexiest leotard and slipped her long, slim feet into her soft-soled satin ballet slippers. He raced up to her bedroom in response to her call and found her lying curled up and almost purring like a supremely aroused she-cat. She looked heart-leapingly sexy in her black sleeveless high-thigh leotard, white footless ballet tights and soft soled ballet slippers in pale pink satin kept on with a strip of thin elastic over the top of each foot. "I'd like to feel something really nice through my leotard Darling", her devastatingly sexy smile hitting him straight between the eyes and her head resting on one bent arm as with her other hand she teased a strand of her sandy blonde hair. It took him several seconds to strip to his briefs and join her on the bed and it still seemed too long to both of them. Every lovely line and curve of her body and legs was emphasised and celebrated by the thin layer of lycra and nylon that covered them so attractively and felt so tantalising as he held her to him. While his black briefs proclaimed the latent power running through his rugby player physique with its swathes of dark hair across his chest, back and limbs that she delighted in running her hands over as she kissed him. When Tony met Monica He pulled the straps of her leotard down her forearms and for a moment enjoyed a feeling of gentle dominance over her as he held and kissed her and then began to stroke her breasts while her arms were pinned to her sides. Then she reasserted herself and, crossing her arms across herself to take hold of the straps of her leotard, pulled it down to her waste, put her hands on the back of his head and pulled his face into her warm and softly fragrant cleavage while he fondled her breasts from beneath. They exchanged long deep-tonguing kisses and stroked each other's bottoms and she moaned with delight as she pushed and rubbed her tender breasts with her thrillingly stiff nipples as hard as she could against his chest. He eased himself down onto his back and drew her to squat over and straddle him. She pushed her more sensitive left breast into his mouth and stroked his bulging briefs as he sucked and nibbled her nipple and reached between her legs to cup in his palm her warm dampness spreading across the smooth lycra and nylon of her leotard and tights stretched skin tight across her crotch. She gasped as he expertly rubbed her clitoris and then cried out as he pushed his finger into her as far as the sheathing sheerness of her ballet clothing would allow. "Will you keep your ballet slippers on when you're naked. It'll be such a turn on for me"; he managed to mumble between mouthfuls of her soft, warm mammarian flesh. "I'll do anything you want to pleasure you My Darling," she panted and yearned for the reality of her promise, "But please take me and fill me now. My whole body is desperate for you." He eased himself up and turned her over onto her back. While he ground his crotch into her and nuzzled her breasts and her cleavage she reached out to the sides of the bed and squeezed the edges of the mattress in her hands and stretched out her legs and pointed her feet as her anxiety to feel him inside her pulsated through her whole body. She was crying out with every breath she took. "Please. Oh Please. I can't wait anymore. I'm yours Darling. Please have me now." But Tony was an experienced lover and knew that if a woman said she couldn't wait any more she could wait a little bit longer. He pulled off her leotard and felt and kissed her crotch again through her tights. Then he slowly peeled away her tights to expose her pelvis and thighs and kissed her again, now directly onto her pinkly blushing womanhood, throbbing and wide open, coated with the warm slickness oozing out from her deep excitement within. As he undressed her he delighted in revealing the intricate pattern of the milk and white chocolate colouring all over her soft, warm skin that trembled to every touch. She was now incapable of speech and groaned "Ooooh! Ooooh!" with every gasping breath as, with each of her feet in turn, he slowly removed her ballet slipper, kissed her foot all over through her tights, peeled off the lycra-nylon covering, kissed her bare foot all over and then slowly replaced her ballet slipper. He pulled off his briefs and while her breathing became hoarse and her chest tightened as she saw his huge erection, she spread her legs as wide apart as she could and reached down and opened herself up to him as much as she could pull apart her labia in her desperation to take him into her. By now she was crying with longing for him. "Now do some lovely things to me with your feet Darling," he urged her. Then nearly wished he hadn't as the electrifying feel of the smooth satin of her ballet slippers stroking and teasing his throbbing erection and his aching swollen balls almost overwhelmed him. Desperate for him not to come, she hooked her satin-slippered feet around the back of his neck and by bending her knees, pulled his face towards her vagina. Totally inflamed by the sight of her gaping womanhood between her gorgeously softly rounded thighs spreading wider as he approached, by the sound of her desperate cries of appeal to him as her breasts heaved and her pelvis undulated as if an earthquake was rippling through her, and by the intoxicating feel of her ballet-slippered feet on his hypersensitised genitals, he plunged himself into her and they both screamed with the shock and delight of their first union as she performed a virtuoso vaginal massage on his pulsating penetration deep inside her. After so much deeply passionate and highly erotic foreplay they both came to orgasm within several deep thrusts of his quivering manhood over and against her swollen clitoris and labia and several answering grinds of her warm and moist womanhood on his ring and his stretched and sensitised foreskin. Monica let her head sink back into the pillow and she smiled weakly at Tony. But her eyes blazed with satisfied delight as she enjoyed the feeling of her afterglow spreading through her as her vagina kept on spontaneously clenching and releasing on his bigness that continued to fill her for a good while afterwards. She kissed him and stroked his hair and her voice trembled with her tears of joy and gratitude as she whispered to him. "Oh thank you. Thank you so much My Darling. You've made me feel whole again. Thank you My Wonderful Lover." Then as she kissed him she whispered, "I love you so much Darling." Tony had not heard those words said to him since Helen had breathed them to him with her last pain-filled breath at the moment she died, and Monica held him to her and cried with him when she understood. When he could speak again his response was equally deeply heartfelt. "I've loved you and longed for you since the moment I first opened up your pictures and fell in love with your beautiful eyes. You make me glad to be me. You are so beautiful My Love." He kissed the chocolate brown skin of her birthmark on her face and stroked the warm chocolate mound of her left breast. He thought for a fleeting moment how blessed he had been to experience the joy of sex with three such wonderfully different women as Helen, Gemma and Monica. Helen, small and elfin, would as a prelude to their lovemaking make maximum use of her apparent physical vulnerability to stir up his feelings of masculine protectiveness towards her by appearing hesitant and almost timid. Then, no matter how many times she did it to him, she would always surprise him with her sudden explosion of passion for him, which could lead to anything from him licking whipped cream and fudge sauce from her crotch to her tying him up and spanking him while he wore her bra, pants and tights that she'd just taken off. Gemma had more than made up for her early inexperience with her childlike enthusiasm and fearlessness to try any sexual experience and had many times reawakened and renewed his enthusiasm and imagination, suppressed for so long after Helen's death. Monica embodied all the accumulated treasure of passion and artistry of an experienced lover allied to her own undiminished beauty and grace and sense of adventure and fun. As their passion calmed and became gentle within them Tony noticed a silver gilt cross standing in the middle of her dressing table. He had seen several other crosses on walls and furniture in other rooms. He recalled her reference to her husband's Spanish grandmother and several other significant things she had said and then he asked. "Darling, I hope you don't mind me asking but are you a Roman Catholic?" She smiled warmly at him. "You don't have to apologise to me for asking me about my faith. Yes I am a Catholic. I'm always happy to talk about my faith if people ask me first." "But ought we not to be together like this?" He sounded a little anxious. "What with Catholic guilt and Graham Greene and all that, and me being a Baptist. Won't you be in trouble with your priest or something?" Tony had rediscovered his faith, planted in him by the Baptist chapel in the Yorkshire mining village where he had grown up, after his near-death experience on the operating table during his heart operation. His involvement at his local church had picked up again during a temporary lull while he and Gemma had been together. Monica smiled even more warmly. "You'd be surprised at how open the Catholic church can be. Lots of Catholics are married to people from other churches or other faiths or none. Lots of Catholics don't even bother with the ‘married to' bit. Although the Church still draws the line at that and so do I." Tony answered her meaningful look with an equally meaningful one of his own. "As for feeling guilty, I would only feel that way if you couldn't square it with your conscience and I know we'll both be discrete so as not to be a stumbling block to anyone else's faith. And if we did get married there would be no controversy about bringing up children as Catholics because yours are all grown up." "I'm so relieved. Especially as I used to fantasise about making love with a Catholic girl. Until I met Helen of course. Did you ever want to be a nun?" "I wanted to get laid and have lots of babies," she laughed. "But I couldn't tell The Sisters that of course. ‘Monica Carew, go to the Reverend Mother's office straight after class,' it would have been." "You only had Andrew though?" "We both had complications after he was born, my little lamb. He needed oxygen to pull him through and I would have died without an emergency hysterectomy." "Oh Dear Lord! You lost your womb when you were only twenty-two!" "It's alright darling. Andrew's given me as much joy as six children", she reassured him gently as she wiped away the tears that smarted his eyes again. Then after a moment she added, with the most enticing of come-on smiles, "And all that Catholic guilt makes us Catholic girls such exciting lovers." They made love several more times. It had been nearly two months since Tony had last made love with Gemma and for a good while he couldn't get enough of Monica. But she had endured five years of celibacy following Peter's death and now her appetite for Tony far exceeded what he could match. First she kissed the entire length of his operation scar starting from his shoulder. His heart pounded and his penis swelled, stiffened and rose to greet her mouth as it approached and he anticipated what she intended to do. He almost melted inside with pleasure as she stroked him and squeezed him and then tasted his whole length with her quivering tongue as her lips sealed tight all around him and glided up and down his foreskin. She brought him almost to climax before releasing his hugeness and presenting her bottom to him and her vagina nestling between her spread thighs for him to enter from behind like plunging a poker radiating pulsating redness from the forge into a cooling vat. They grunted in unison every time he ground his pelvis into her buttocks while he reached forward and fondled and squeezed her breasts and she reached back and fondled and squeezed his balls as they hung down together like heavy ripe fruit desperate to be plucked. Then she balanced herself upside down on her shoulders and the back of her head and crossed her legs above her in a yoga position. While he fondled her bottom and feasted on her yoni, she kissed and nibbled his balls as they hung down above her face as he knelt in front of her. Then as they sank down together she took his lingam into her mouth and they feasted on the juices of each other's fulfilment. He lay on his back and she sat astride him and rode his penis while he fondled her breasts. Then after she cried out in her orgasm he turned her over onto her back and brought himself to orgasm as she groaned in her ecstasy with every thrust. While he remained big inside her and she continued to gently pleasure herself on him, he took a small box from the drawer of the bedside cabinet where he had hidden it earlier and gave it to her. Her eyes beamed as she beheld the beautiful blue diamond cluster like a flower on the gleaming gold band. "There's no point in waiting for the proper moment to tell you what I've already been certain of since I first laid eyes on you. I love you and I want to be with you forever. Please will you marry me?" "This must be the most erotic marriage proposal of all time," she gasped through the afterglow of her orgasm and the emotion welling up within her, "I'll love spending the rest of my life with you and growing old together with you. Especially if it's going to be as enjoyable as this." His strength was spent now but after a long, loving cuddle and kiss she still wanted more. She told him where to find her vibrator and she moaned with pleasure as he laid it on her clitoris. As her whole body bucked and squirmed with pleasure he pushed it into her deeper and deeper. As she kneaded her aching breasts and pinched her pulsating nipples, delighting in the sight of the engagement ring that now graced her finger pressed against her breast, she had her final orgasm and she sobbed with all the joy that flooded her whole being, as he lay beside her and cradled his Pied Beauty in his arms. They drank champagne as they bathed together. She leaned back against him as he lovingly washed her breasts and between her legs and gently pleasured her with his fingers as she sighed with delight. They changed places and she massaged his shoulders and he almost growled with pleasure as she gave him the most delicious of feelings by gently scratching his back with her beautifully manicured fingernails while she also nuzzled and nibbled his ears and the back of his neck. Then they slept naked together and she rejoiced in the wonderful feeling of having the man she loved lying next to her in her bed, warming and comforting her after five long and lonely years: this man who would soon be her husband. ********** Monica's gentle lilting mezzo filled the kitchen as she prepared breakfast and it drifted upstairs to awaken Tony from his contented slumber. He slipped on the dressing gown she had left for him and his ears attuned to her song as he came downstairs. "As morning breaks I look to You oh God To be my strength this day Alleluia." He recognised the words as from one of the Psalms but the gentle modern folk tune was unfamiliar. As he came into the kitchen he delighted in the sight of her illuminated by the sunlight flooding in through the kitchen window. She wore an oversize white tee shirt, black leggings and white canvas slip-on pumps. He embraced her waist from behind and she loved the contrast of his well-built forearms with their covering of black hair emerging from the smooth shiny white satin of his dressing gown. "That's a lovely song Darling," he said as he cuddled her and kissed her behind her ear, "Will you teach it to me so we can sing it together?" After a few minutes his slightly gruff but tuneful baritone rejoiced together with her and with his innate musicality he improvised some beautiful harmonies the better to express their love in song. ********** They were married in Monica's church. Father Donald married them as they knelt between two tall candles on tall stands, one for Peter and one for Helen. He also got permission from his Bishop, rarely given but granted on this occasion in view of how both of them had responded with faith and love to all they had suffered, to invite the Baptist Pastor, the Reverend Dr Phillipson, to preach and to administer communion to Tony, his family and other non-Catholics side by side with him as he gave communion to Monica and her fellow Catholic communicants. ********** Monica had always believed that it was sometimes better to break certain news to her man when he was already pleasantly distracted by something else. So she waited until he was nicely relaxed after a particularly passionate bout of lovemaking before telling him what she had been told earlier that day. She smiled sweetly as she gave him a gentle pelvic massage. "I've had some good news today." "We've been given a miracle and I've made you pregnant," he smiled as he stroked a strand of her hair clinging to the side of her face. "If only," she laughed, giving him inside her a playful squeeze, "Andrew's getting married." "Fantastic," said Tony, lifting himself up more to look at her properly, Anyone I know?" "I'll say you do," she chuckled, "it's Gemma." "That's amazing news. When did he…Wait a minute, that means I'll be her father! Does Andrew know about me and.." "It's alright Darling," she soothed, smiling as she stroked his brow with the back of her hand, "He says it's because of you that he was able to get up the courage to propose to her. He's been besotted with her for years but because they were both so shy they would never get together. When he saw how much more confident she had become he did the Faint Heart Never Won Fair Lady bit and she said yes straight away. She even wants to become a Catholic so they can share everything together. Father Donald says he's never had so many tough questions from someone wanting to convert. It's all a complete surprise to me too. My dear son has turned out to be a real Dark Horse." Tony laughed as he remembered about Gemma being almost the only non-Catholic at her Catholic girls' school. ********** If Tony had been worried about his feelings on seeing Gemma again when she and Andrew came for a celebration dinner his anxieties were instantly dispelled by seeing her so demonstrably happy and in love with the quiet and gentle young man who so obviously adored her. His last memory of her, so desperately sad at their parting, was totally swept away by the happiness shared by all four of them. Monica liked to maintain certain traditions. So after dinner she and Gemma retired to the kitchen for a good chat while the men took occupation of the lounge. "How do you feel about seeing Tony?" she asked Gemma. "I'm so happy to see you two happy together. It's what I wanted so much for you both. He'll always be special to me but in a different way now, a friend and not a lover. I feel I've given him everything I was meant to give him and he's given me what I needed to grow and move on." Meanwhile Tony shared his feelings with Andrew. "I love Gemma like my own daughters now. In a way I loved her like a daughter when we were together because all I ever wanted was to give her love so she could grow and be all she was made to be. Does that sound at all bad?" "No, you did a beautiful thing by loving her and then letting her be free," Andrew smiled. "I wish it had been me who'd had the time you spent with Gemma. But then if you hadn't, you wouldn't have met Mum and made her happy too." "So now there are four happy people instead of just two," Tony answered. They sat quietly for a moment until, returning Andrew's ruminating smile with a rueful shake of his head, he sighed, "No, I can't figure it out either." "Sometimes I almost think she planned it this way. Anyway, let's just be grateful for things working out the way they have." Andrew extended his hand and Tony shook it warmly. He gave Andrew his copy of the DVD of Gemma's ballerina pictures. "This belongs to you now," he said. Andrew raised his glass and he and Tony sipped their port in quiet companionship until the ladies returned with dessert. After Andrew and Gemma had left, Monica found a card on the mantelpiece addressed to Tony in Gemma's handwriting. He opened it and they smiled at what it contained. She had painted a miniature watercolour of her and Tony's favourite riverside walk at sunrise. Inside she had written "Thank you for giving me so much, so I could go on and find so much more." ********** Father Donald received her into the Catholic Church on her wedding day, before he married her to Andrew. She knelt twice before him, elegantly lovely in her antique Edwardian wedding dress that she had found on another of her charity shop adventures. First alone and then with Andrew by her side as she embarked on her new life of faith and marriage. When Tony met Monica Tony cried as much as Monica did and for the same reasons. They loved her as their daughter. That night, as Monica lay in his arms and enfolded him in her loving warmness, he remembered what Michaela had said to him. "We're all growing." [The end]