All Types of Gardening Work

Author's note: As I drafted this story I realised that the character of Jacqui Thorne is in fact the same person as the unnamed mother in my Incest/Taboo story "Edward and Mrs Milf", and that the action here takes place a short while after that of the older story. I therefore reworked the present story a little so as to make the connection more explicit. However, the two stories are otherwise independent of each other.

***

It is a Friday evening in summer, and a group of former classmates is in the garden of a pub in a quiet, prosperous village in the London commuter belt. Former classmates, but not by much. These young people finished school about a month ago and are in that odd summer limbo that precedes the onset of the rest of their lives, in the form of work or University (or, indeed, unemployment). One of the group, a handsome but rather diffident boy called Ben, is explaining his plans for the rest of the summer.

"So I've had these flyers printed, right, and what I'm going to do, I'm actually going to knock on doors and talk to people rather than just push the flyers through letterboxes, try to make some personal contact. Hopefully get a couple of jobs straight away, then a bit of word of mouth gets round. Dad's still got all his gear and the van, said I can use it, so there's no outlay for me. All I want to do first of all is make enough for Lucy and me's holiday at the end of the summer, then that'll prove to Dad that I can make a go of it longer term."

He passes round a few of the flyers, to general approbation. "Ben Hicks. A Name You Can Trust. All Types of Gardening Work Undertaken." they proclaim.

Tim, the banker's son, cuts in with his overbearing drawl: "Well, Ben, mate, this is all well and good but it looks like a lot of effort to me. Can't you get your old man to sub you and Luce for the holiday? I know that's what I'd do ..."

Lucy, Ben's girlfriend, defends her lover like a mother tiger would its young: "Tim, could you maybe do yourself and all of us a favour by taking a day off - just a day, to start with - from being a twat, yeah?"

Lucy's tough inner-London upbringing and Jamaican ancestry combine with a sharp intelligence and sharper tongue to give her a maverick status within the group: a speaker of truth to the middle-class, provincial complacency of her peers. She is now clearly winding up for one of her set-piece rants.

"Thing is, right, Tim, we all know your Dad's fucking rolling in money. We know because you remind us all on a daily basis, yeah, and it's how you end up going skiing in the Maldives or scuba diving in the Alps or whatever it is he pays for you to do whenever you get a little bit bored. Now I'm saying nothing about how your Dad makes his cash. Nothing at all. Nothing about the City and banks and stocks and hedge funds and all that dodgy shit that brought the fucking world to its knees, right? I mean, that was all your Dad's doing, yeah? He was personally responsible for all of it, and if he wasn't, then he wasn't doing his job properly, cos that's his job, right? Fucking over normal people and getting rich on it. And you know as well as I do that Ben's Dad had a real job, right, using his hands and his skill, and the strain that put on his body means he can't work now. And I tell you, Tim, and I'm serious now, I am so, so fucking proud of Ben for trying to make a go of this and keep his Dad's skills alive, and do something real, like real, proper work, and then enjoy the fruits of it. Cos I'm telling you, boy, you could be in the Maldives or the Alps or on the fucking moon while Ben and me are in Spain, but every drink by the pool, every long, lazy afternoon, is gonna be a thousand times sweeter than you can imagine, cos Ben and I will have worked for it. So, Tim. Stop being a twat. You twat."

Tim, to his credit, raises his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Fair play, Luce, guilty as charged. Sorry, Ben, mate, no offence to you or your old man, yeah? Who wants another drink?"

Tim goes to the bar. Ben gazes adoringly at Lucy, for whom he harbours the very special devotion that a young man reserves for the girl who has recently relieved him of his virginity. He resolves to express his gratitude later that evening with some particularly attentive cunnilingus - a practice for which he has discovered a natural aptitude. For a moment he is lost in a daydream, in which he is lowering his face to the moist, musky warmth between Lucy's slim thighs. At the sound of little Alison's quiet, sensible voice he snaps back to the present and shifts in his seat to conceal his suddenly surging erection.

"So, Ben, where are you going to start?"

"Er, well, I thought I'd work my way down the estate, I know all the people there well so that should be a good start, then try the big houses on Corinth Drive. Big gardens and hopefully a bit of cash to spend."

Tim has returned with the drinks. "Corinth Drive, eh? Mrs Milf's house? Watch out, Lucy!"

Lucy again: "Jesus, Tim, are you on dickhead overtime today? I just don't get this 'Mrs Milf' thing with Jacqui Thorne. Since I've been working in the shop I've chatted to her a lot - she's a really nice, normal woman. Just cos she's younger and prettier than most of our mums, everybody makes out she's like this predatory cougar or something. Seriously, has anyone seen anything to suggest that she's anything other than happily married and faithful to Lawrence?"

No answer from the group.

"See? And anyway," with a sly grin, "Jacqui Thorne may be young and pretty but she'd have her work cut out taking my Ben from me."

Ben smiles shyly, and shifts in his seat again.

The next day Ben embarks on his project, trying to sell his gardening services to the good people of the village. A few expressions of interest, a couple conditional on "seeing what my husband/wife thinks." One quick and easy lawn mowing job on the estate. A start, at least. Then to Corinth Drive. Big, detached houses, set back from the road. Should be a goldmine. Number twelve. The Thornes' place. He is oddly apprehensive. He rings the bell. Mrs Thorne answers. She looks younger than the 38 years which are generally attributed to her. She is smiling, wearing a sundress over a bikini, with outsized sunglasses pushed back onto her head. Tanned, petite, shapely, busty, really very pretty, with blue eyes, high cheekbones, and long chestnut hair tied back into a ponytail. She embarks on a typical outpouring of cheerful niceness.

"Oh hello Ben, long time! How are you these days? Are you looking for Eddie? I'm afraid he's out for the day. Gone to the coast with Becky. I told him they'd be sitting in traffic all day, in this heat, they'd be better off in our garden, but he was determined to whisk her away. Young love, eh? I hear you and Lucy are an item? I see her quite a lot at the shop, you know. Lovely, lovely girl. So clever and funny. Brings a bit of life to this place. Lovely looking, too, you lucky boy. So, yes, I can tell Eddie you were looking for him, if you like."

"Actually, Mrs Thorne ..."

"Jacqui, please, Ben."

"Actually, it wasn't Eddie I was after. I was wondering if there was any gardening work you needed doing." He offers her a flyer.

"Oh gosh, how super!" She really does say "super". She must be the last person alive to use that word without ironic detachment. "So you're taking over your father's business! Oh, Ben, I think that's wonderful!"

"Well, for the moment I'm just trying out, seeing if I can earn enough for Lucy and me to go on holiday."

"Oh lovely! We're just back from France, you know. Becky came with us. We had a lovely time. Where are you and Lucy going?"

"Spain, that's the plan ... so ... um ... Mrs ... Jacqui ... do you think you can ... er ... make use of me?"

Why on earth did he phrase it like that?

"Well, you know, Ben, I was just sunbathing out in the garden now, and I was just thinking, after we've been away for a couple of weeks, it does need a really good tidy up, and Lawrence is away on business again, and I'd have a go myself but I'm really a bit clueless with all of that, and, look, how about you come through, take a look at it, see if there's anything you can do to knock it into a bit of shape, eh?"

Mrs Thorne sunbathing in her garden. During Ben's adolescence, that had been the holy grail of the boys on the estate. Make friends with Eddie Thorne and find an excuse to go round to his place on a sunny afternoon when his Mum was sunbathing. It was well known that she sometimes went topless, or even nude - everybody knew someone who knew someone who had once seen, like, everything. Nobody could remember exactly who, though, or when. Ben walks through the spacious house, out through the French windows at the back, into the large, rather rambling garden, and looks around. Well, there's a few hours work, he thinks. Lawn, bushes. The flower and herb bed edges need re-doing. Weed the beds themselves. That wet spell followed by the heatwave sent everything growing like crazy.

"It's a lovely garden, all right. Tell you what, Jacqui, how about I give this a couple of hours of general clear-up, then we see how it looks and if you want anything else done, maybe another day. I can start now, if you don't mind the disturbance." He names a price and she agrees.

"Oh Ben, you're an absolute darling. Thank you so much. Now, it's ever so hot, so how about if I leave a coolbox with some bottles of water on it here on the patio, yes? So you can just help yourself. I'll put a couple of beers in there too, as a treat." Furtive giggle. "You don't mind me staying out here while you work, do you? Only it seems a shame to be indoors on such a glorious afternoon."

"Ah, no, that's fine, very good of you, Jacqui. It might just get a bit noisy with the mower, that's all. But if you don't mind that ... Well, right, I'll get my gear out of the truck and bring it round, if that's OK?"

By the time he is lugging the petrol mower round the side of the house, Jacqui Thorne has resumed what he guesses was her previous position, lying on her back on a sun lounger on the patio. The sundress has come off and she is wearing a scarlet bikini. Halter neck, with shaped cups to support her large breasts. The bikini briefs are cut low on her hips. Her skin is evenly tanned. The sunglasses are over her eyes so Ben can't tell whether she can tell how much he is or is not looking at her. The drinks coolbox is next to her. Ben makes a very determined effort to look straight ahead and focus on his work.

As he gets going. Jacqui watches him. He is a lean, athletic boy, strong and with a certain ease and grace to his movements, all the more apparent after he has taken off his t-shirt and the sweat is shining on his tanned skin. His baggy khaki shorts sit low on his hips, showing his fine physique to great advantage.

He is trying very hard indeed not to look at her, and not to need a drink. But it's hot work. He mows the lawn without a break, but once he cuts the mower engine and silence descends, he knows he needs some water. He turns towards the patio. Jacqui is now lying face down on the lounger. Is she asleep? As he reaches for a bottle of water, she says in a drowsy voice, "Ben, would you be a sweetheart and put some lotion on my back, please?"

"Er ... um ... yes, of course ... I'll just wash my hands in the kitchen if that's OK?"

When he emerges from the kitchen she is still face down but has unfastened her bikini top so that, from the back, there is nothing covering her above the waist. It's not like he can see anything - her breasts are resting in the cups of the bikini top which is underneath her - but still he stops for a second to catch his breath. Eddie Thorne's mum, sunbathing topless. Face down, but topless. His younger self would have crawled over broken glass to see this, to be here. Come on, he says to himself, grow up, you're an adult now, you've got a gorgeous, sexy girlfriend and it's absolutely certain you will have sex with her before the end of the day. So, if the very pleasant, friendly Mrs Thorne asks you to rub sun lotion onto her naked back, that's fine, you're just lending a hand. Be adult about this, Ben.

He picks up the lotion bottle. It's a spray one. "Where would you like it, Mrs ... er ... Jacqui?" Christ, how dodgy did that sound?

"Oh, if you could just spray it on me and then rub it in as much as possible, that would be lovely." What is this, he thinks, National Innuendo Day? But, obliging lad that he is, he sprays the lotion generously onto her slim, tanned torso. There are no tan lines on her back or shoulders, so he guesses that the bikini top never stays on for very long. He starts to massage the lotion into her shoulder blades.

"Mmm, that's lovely, Ben. You know, for such a strong boy you've got ever such a gentle touch."

Lucy says this to him as well, and he is proud of it. Maybe it's exactly because he likes working with his hands that he knows how to moderate his own strength, and to be subtle and exact as well as powerful. He likes to think so. He is being very, very careful indeed not to let his hands stray down off the upper surface of her back, anywhere near the sides of her breasts which are squashed under her.

"Ooh, could you just do a bit lower down, Ben dear? Thank you."

He works his way down to the small of her back, towards the waistband of her bikini briefs, to the start of the swell of her neat, round buttocks. He is utterly determined, quite against the odds, not to get an erection. To distract himself, he looks up. The house is on the outside of a curve in the road, and what with that and the high fences on both sides, the patio is not visible from the neighbours' upstairs windows. No wonder she finds it so easy to take her clothes off out here. At the back, the tall bushes do not quite block the view from the nearest house, which is a way off anyway, but he knocked on that door earlier and there is nobody in.

"Mmm, thank you my dear, that was lovely." She is calling a halt, thank God. And he didn't get a hard-on. Round one to Lucy.

"I'll, er, start on those bushes now, if that's OK." Hurriedly, he resumes his work.

For a while he has his back to her as he deals with the thick vegetation at the far end of the garden. He turns to pick up a pair of secateurs from his toolbox and sees that Jacqui is sitting upright on the edge of the sun lounger, slowly and lovingly massaging sun lotion into her big, full, naked breasts. He can't look. He can't look away. He is wearing sunglasses so can probably just get away with a glance. She's spraying the stuff onto them, lifting them in her hands, squeezing them, rubbing them. Little finishing touches to the nipples with her fingertips. Fuck. She is looking straight at him, with her boobs in her hands, and smiling sweetly. Oh dear God. He grabs the secateurs and turns to busy himself with the plants. His heart is racing. And there is no escaping the fact that there is now the beginning of an erection in his shorts.

He finishes the plants at the furthest end of the garden. Now he has to work his way back up to the house. And he is very thirsty, with the start of a headache. He really needs some water. Water which, of course, he left in the coolbox next to Jacqui's sun lounger. Why the fuck did he not bring it with him? Deep breath, Ben. Just do your work and keep yourself hydrated. She's just put lotion all over her tits herself, she can't possibly ask you to do that. Get some water or you'll make yourself ill.

He strides purposefully to the patio and heads for the coolbox. She's lying on her back, breasts fully exposed. Was her hand at her crotch for a split second before she saw him approaching? Surely not. He stands next to her lounger to pick up the water. Should he say something? He looks down at her. She has folded her arms across her torso, so that her breasts are lifted and pushed together. Her nipples are visibly hard. He looks away hurriedly. She says, very softly, "It's OK, Ben. Don't worry. It's all right to look."

"Er ... no ... I mean ... sorry ... Mrs ... Jacqui ..."

Again, very softly: "I'm telling you, Ben, it's OK if you want to look at my breasts. It's normal, natural. I know you've got Lucy, and she's a gorgeous, sexy girl. I'm not suggesting otherwise. But I know I've got a nice body too, and I know a young man like you can't help but want to look at me. So, take your time, drink your water, and look at my breasts if you want to."

It would seem rude to carry on looking away. So he doesn't stop himself from looking down at her. She carries on talking, in any case, so he can tell himself he's looking at her face and not at the glorious bare bosom a few inches below it. And that she is looking at his face, and not at his flat, toned stomach and the fine line of dark hair that leads from his navel down into the waistband of his shorts, where a bulge is clearly forming.

"Maybe it's a nice contrast for you, Ben. I mean, I've noticed Lucy has got those lovely pert, pointy little boobs, hardly needs to wear a bra. In fact sometimes she doesn't, I've noticed that too. And they're ever so nice, but maybe it's nice for you to see some big ones like mine, too. What do you think?" It sounds such an innocent question, as if she's asking his opinion on a plant in the garden. Ben's head is spinning not only from his proximity to Jacqui Thorne's naked breasts but also from the notion that Jacqui has been checking out Lucy's tits in the village shop. What the fuck can he say?

"Oh ... er ... yes ... well, thank you ... yes ... very nice ... I'd, er better do that herb bed ..." He returns to his equipment, slowed slightly by the erection that he hopes to God she has not noticed.

Should he just make an excuse, pack up and go? Risk losing money, the word-of-mouth recommendations, the start of his business, his ability to keep his promises to Lucy and Dad? The holiday in Spain? She's just bored and winding you up, he tells himself. It's all harmless. He begins to apply himself, with great concentration, to the task of recutting the edge of the herb bed. That's better.

Fucking hell, he's left the water bottle up there again. How long can he carry on in this heat without a drink? A long time, actually, almost but not quite long enough to finish what he had set out to do. Until a stray blade of grass from the cuttings pile he created earlier, that he is going to put in the compost bin at the end, is picked up by the gentle summer breeze and floats into his mouth, catching at the back of his throat. He coughs and splutters violently. Resistance is useless. He has to have some water.

Oh Jesus Christ. She's face down again now but she's ... is she? ... yes she is. Naked. At some point she has removed her bikini briefs. The skin on her bottom is only very slightly paler than the rest of her, suggesting that it gets a fair bit of exposure. She is lying on her front with her legs together. Ben is very careful to walk round the side of her to remove any risk of looking at her directly from behind. He prays that she is asleep. He stoops for the water bottle.

Again the drowsy voice: "Ben, my dear, I'm sorry to be a pain, but would you be ever so kind and put a bit more lotion on me?"

His heart pounds. "Jacqui ... are you sure?"

"Yes. If you don't mind, that is. On my bottom where the bikini was, and a bit on the backs of my thighs, if that's OK?"

Is that OK? Really, is it OK? Massaging sun lotion into Jacqui Thorne's naked buttocks and thighs? Is that OK by you, Lucy? Of course it fucking isn't. But there's a limit to how much the presence in a young man's life of a beautiful, charismatic and sexually enthusiastic girlfriend can do, to hold him back from following his deeper instincts when opportunities present themselves. And he is very very close to that limit now. He washes his hands in the kitchen again, returns to the patio. He tries to position himself so he is looking down Jacqui's body towards her feet, not up towards the cleft between her legs. He kneels next to the lounger, sprays the lotion onto her bum cheeks and begins to rub it in. Deep breath.