Art in Reality Ch. 01: A New Beginning

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Caution, relaxation, awakening, teasing, passion.
22.4k words
4.86
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Part 1 of the 2 part series

Updated 06/08/2023
Created 03/18/2018
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For those who have read the previous version of this story, a few words of explanation: I have called this story 'A New Beginning,' in part because this is what it is for the two characters, but also because it is a significant re-write of 'Art in Reality' chapters 1 and 2.

I recently published 'What do I do,' and I feel that my writing has improved since my first foray into erotic fiction with 'Art in Reality'.

Several people gave positive and much appreciated encouragement in comments on the original version of this story. I wanted to return to this tale, as I felt it could be much improved, with richer detail, and hopefully, better writing. Depending on the comments for this version, I hope to continue revising this story and then continue with completely new writing when I get to where I left off at the end of the original chapter 10.

Hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 1

Alex peered through the windscreen and could just about make out the figure as it moved through the torrential rain towards him. The little Fiat 500, from which the person had emerged, had stopped about a dozen yards in front of his own car. When Alex lowered his window, the rain poured in and immediately started soaking his legs and a good portion of his shirt; but he hardly noticed. The face that peered in at him, despite grimacing against the slashing rain, was strikingly beautiful.

'Are you okay?' she cried over the howling gale.

'Yes, I'm fine. It's just the car,' Alex shouted back.

'I thought you might be hurt.'

'No, I'm okay. It's very kind of you to check. Something jumped out, a sheep I think, jumped out in front of me. It's only a shallow ditch, but the car is stuck fast.'

'Have you got someone coming to pull you out? A truck or something?' she said, swaying and catching her balance as the wind buffeted her sideways.

'No, I can't get a signal. I'll wait until the weather gives over and walk home, it's not far. I don't fancy walking along the road in this.'

'Oh right. Well as long as you're okay.'

She stood up slightly straighter, pulling away from the window.

'Thank you so much for stopping to check,' Alex said with a nod.

She smiled and nodded in return, then started back towards her own car.

After a couple of steps she paused, and then turned back.

'How far is your house then?' she yelled over the wind.

'About ten minutes drive. But I wasn't counting on this weather!'

He could not quite make out the expression on her face, through the gloom and the downpour.

'Do you want a lift?' she asked several moments later.

'No, no I wouldn't want you to go out of your way. Thank you though', he replied.

'Well we're both pointing the same direction so I assume you're going that way,' she pointed over her shoulder, in the direction both their cars were facing. 'Are you sure? I'll probably be passing your place anyway, if it's only ten minutes.'

'Well if you don't mind. That would be great,' Alex conceded.

'Are you okay leaving your car here?'

'Yeah it'll be okay. And it's not blocking the road.'

Alex waved towards her car and added, 'you go back. I'll just grab my bag out the back.'

She nodded and jogged back to her own car.

She jumped into the driver's seat and slammed the door shut. After a momentary pause she shuddered with cold.

In her rear view mirror, she could just about make out the man as he pulled out a bag and then locked his car with a flash of orange indicators. He then jogged towards her, hunched over against the rain.

'What the fuck am I thinking,' she said to herself.

He opened the door and hopped into the front seat beside her.

With the interior light of the car on, she could see him more clearly now.

He did not look like a rapist or a psycho she quickly decided. Quite handsome in fact. He looked late thirties or perhaps very early forties. Short, dark blonde hair, with some flashes of silver on the sides. Chiselled, but friendly, features and shining blue eyes.

'Oh god, you're drenched,' he said, as he glanced down at her clothes.

Her blue jeans were dark with the wetness and clearly stuck tight to her legs; and her woollen jumper looked like it had been lifted from a bucket of water.

Alex looked back up into his rescuer's hazel eyes, and again made note of her striking looks. She had dark brown hair that reached just to her shoulders, strong eyebrows, porcelain smooth skin over beautiful features; and a few dozen freckles on her cheeks that were so perfect they looked like they had been painted on.

'Bloody weather,' she shrugged her shoulders, 'and it was lovely earlier when I was painting.'

'Yes. It was nice today.'

Alex was caught up in her eyes.

'That way then,' she said, after an awkward pause, and poked her finger outwards, towards the road ahead.

'Yes. Sorry,' he snapped to the front and peered out of the windscreen. 'My house is on this road. I can give a shout when we get to my driveway.'

He looked back at her and smiled his thanks.

She gave a small smile in return and then focused on getting them going. She started the engine and then set off, slowly and cautiously, down the lane.

For the first five minutes, the only noise was the rain and wind hammering against the car and the rapid whine of the wipers as they flicked back and forth across the screen.

'I can't believe how fast the weather turns down here,' she commented.

'Yes. Cornwall has some of the best weather in the UK as a rule, but we do get hit suddenly by storms coming in fast off the sea,' Alex replied, taking the opportunity to look sidelong at her.

'It looked so nice this morning, I didn't pack a rain coat. Or an umbrella,' she added.

'I'm sorry you've gotten soaked. Thank you so much for giving me a lift.'

She flicked her eyes away from the road for just a moment and shone a dazzling smile in his direction. Alex could not think what else to say.

The lane twisted onwards whilst occasional, distant rumbles of thunder suggested the storm was not giving up any time soon.

As Alex took what he hoped were unnoticed glances at the driver, whilst she concentrated on the road, he pondered her age. He guessed around twenty eight. Certainly no more than thirty. He missed most of the landscape features that would have told him he was nearly home. Only a distinctly sharp bend on the road, brought his attention back to navigating.

'Ah, we're nearly there,' he piped up. 'You should see, a mirror, on the left, coming up. Yes there look. That's the end of my drive.'

She slowed the car right down.

'You can drop me here.'

'I can turn in if you want,' she responded, 'might as well get you as close to the door as I can.'

'Okay, thanks.'

She turned the car onto the single lane track and they started heading uphill.

'Crikey, this is one hell of a driveway,' she quipped, after a full minute of ascending, 'I'm expecting a mansion at the top, m'lord.'

They both smiled.

'It is a long driveway,' Alex responded, 'but it's just a small cottage at the top. The land on each side is not mine, it's farmland.'

After a couple more minutes uphill, they passed through an open gate and into a wider gravelled area. The car headlights revealed a few glimpses of a beautiful old cottage; single storey, timber beams with brick in-fill, and a slate roof.

She stopped the car as close as she thought polite to the front door.

'There you go,' she said, and shifted in her seat to face him.

'Thank you, again, so much.'

Not knowing quite what else to do, he held out a hand.

She shook hands and smiled at the slightly awkward formality.

'You're cold,' Alex said, just as she particularly noticed the warmth spreading from his hand to her own. 'How much further have you got to go?'

'Oh I don't know,' she scrunched up her nose, 'about forty five minutes maybe.'

'That's a long way to go soaking wet.'

'I'll be all right. I'll turn the heating up more.'

She was quite touched by the genuine frown of concern she saw on his face.

'Look, I know this is probably a bit weird, so by all means say no, but do you want to come in to dry off?'

Alex noted, as expected, the cautious look of skepticism that flickered across her face.

He was not surprised. She had, as far as he was concerned, already taken a fair sized leap of trust to offer a complete stranger a ride home.

'I can bring a towel to the door and you could at least dry your hair,' he added, 'and I can give you a dry jumper. Please, it's the least I can do with you having rescued me.'

He gave what he hoped was a non-threatening smile.

'I promise I'm not an axe murderer,' he concluded.

She sat carefully trying to gauge him, and deciding whether she was being spectacularly stupid. His concern for her appeared genuine and honest, and was helped out by his good looks.

'That's what an axe murderer would say,' she said and glared at him.

His smile broadened into a grin.

'If you don't mind?' she followed up.

'Not at all.'

'Okay.'

'Good.'

Alex gathered up his bag, which was resting in the foot-well.

'Let me go ahead and I'll open the front door, then you make a run for it.'

'Right oh.'

He flung open the car door, jumped out, and flicked it closed behind him, before running towards the house. She waited until he had the front door open and waved to her; then ran after him.

As she jogged through the frame, Alex stepped in after her and closed the door on the foul weather.

She found herself in a large hallway of a beautiful period cottage. Ahead of her were two archways, through which she could see an inviting living room. It had a deep sofa in front of a big fireplace, a lot of bookshelves, and a number of pictures on the walls that caught her curiosity. There were several doors that led off from the hallway. To her left she could make out one to a bathroom and one to a kitchen. On the right she assumed there were bedrooms.

As she took in her surroundings she slowly turned back round towards her host, who was reaching down to undo his shoe laces and slip off his shoes.

She looked down at her own feet and saw a large puddle forming beneath her from her soaking boots and dripping wet clothes.

'Oh your lovely floor, I'm sorry,' she said quickly and started to pull off her boots.

'Don't worry,' he dismissed the rainwater.

She removed her boots and stepped to one side to avoid the puddle. It made little difference though, as her socks left wet footprints and her jumper continued to drip.

'Oh bother,' she said as she looked down at the spreading mess she was making.

She crossed her arms and pulled her jumper up over her head.

'It's fine. It'll, dry...'

Alex's words petered out as his eyes widened. In the couple of seconds that the soggy wool was over her face, her stared at her body. If her T-shirt had been dry it would have been a perfectly nice top; but it too was soaked, and clung to her torso like a second skin.

She had a perfect figure. From hip hugging jeans, his eyes quickly scanned up her slender waist, flat tummy, and up to two magnificent breasts. There was clearly no bra beneath the material, and each perfect half-dome featured a cold, stiff nipple poking clearly through the damp T-shirt.

He was careful to snap his eyes up to hers and keep them there, as she finishing pulling herself free of the baggy jumper.

'Err, um,' he stammered, 'speaking of dry, that's what you need to be.'

At that moment, she was overcome by a a surprise shudder and realised just how cold she actually was.

'Why don't you just go into the bathroom,' Alex gestured towards the partially open door. 'The towels were changed this morning, so the ones hanging over the radiator are fresh. And there are plenty more in the cupboard, just help yourself to anything in there.'

She decided this was a good plan, as she had no wish to pat herself down with a towel in company. The safety of a bathroom door felt like the far better option.

Alex walked over and pushed the door fully open, and reached in to switch on the light before stepping back aside.

She smiled and padded into the bathroom. It was a beautiful big room; stylishly decorated in an understated but high quality way, and with plenty of space for both a free standing bath tub and a huge, glass walled shower cubicle.

She turned, smiled again and said, 'thanks,' before closing the door.

Looking down, she was grateful to see a bolt above the handle, which she softly slid to locked. She turned back to face the room and spotted two neatly folded towels hanging above a radiator on the other side of the room. She walked towards them, when a soft knock on the door made her jump and spin round on the spot.

'Sorry,' she heard through the door, 'I just had a thought. You're very welcome to use the shower. Or the bath. If you want.'

Both of them paused.

'I just thought that it might warm you up better than just the towels. You looked really cold.'

She glanced across at the shower. It did look incredibly inviting and she was freezing.

She looked back at the door, and the good solid looking bolt.

'You don't mind?' she called back.

'Not at all,' he replied.

'Okay, thanks.'

'Help yourself to the shampoo, and whatever.'

'Ta.'

'I'll be in the kitchen.'

'Okay.'

She stood looking at the door for several more seconds, before concluding he must have moved off. She looked around the beautiful bathroom once more, before shrugging her shoulders.

'Okay,' she murmured to herself, and started to undress.

She dropped her jumper down into the bath tub; not wanting to get more of the floor wet. Peeling her T-shirt up over her head, she felt goosebumps tingle across her skin. She then lifted each of her feet in turn to pull off her socks, followed by her jeans, which she struggled with because they were clinging so tightly to her legs. She ended up pulling them completely inside out as she wrestled them off. Finally, the rain was so torrential, even her knickers were wet. They rolled into a ropey knot as she pushed them down her thighs, and she had to wriggle each of her ankles to pull them free of her feet.

She tip-toed over to the shower, avoiding pressing her feet against the cold, stone floor. Zig-zagging through the fixed, overlapping glass walls, she then reached in to turn the water on. It quickly came to a good, hot temperature at the setting it was already on, and so she stepped in to it's blissful embrace.

She sighed and relaxed, as the hot water poured over her body and began to warm her up.

It was a moment of heaven. The water pressure and temperature were amazing. She stood, letting it simply pummel into the back of her neck for several minutes.

Eventually, warmed through, she concluded she should probably get on with it. She squeezed a dollop of creamy shampoo into her hand, from the bottle that was hanging on the pipework, and rubbed it into her hair. She then briefly rubbed the soapy suds over the rest of her body before shifting back fully under the water jet to rinse clean.

Grudgingly, she turned the water off.

The floor now was delightfully cool on the soles of her feet, in contrast to her steaming hot body.

She walked over to the rail, pulled off a towel, and rubbed herself dry.

'Oh fuck,' she cursed to herself as she looked down at her soggy pile of cold clothes in the tub.

She had not thought about this bit.

She reached down, picked up her knickers, and started to untwist them. They felt horribly clammy in her hands.

Just as she was bracing herself to try dragging her underwear up her legs, there was a soft knock on the door.

She span round, dropped the knickers and snatched a towel up in front of herself.

'It just occurred to me,' her host called through the door, 'I should have given you something dry to put on before you went in. Obviously I don't have anything right for you, but I've had a rummage around and I've pulled out some stuff that might do temporarily. And I've lit the fire. We can hang your clothes up in front of it and they'll dry really quickly. And I've made some food. I thought you might be hungry.'

He paused momentarily, before continuing, 'you might want to head off of course. But I thought some hot food was the least I could do to thank you.'

Inside the bathroom, her mind raced. He seemed like a nice enough person, but her sense of vulnerability was certainly not being helped as she stood naked except for a towel clutched to her chest. She wondered what he was offering for her to wear, on the other side of the door.

'Oh, and there's a dressing gown on the back of the door. You're welcome to put that on,' he called through.

There was indeed. She had been staring at it the whole time as she had kept her eyes towards the door.

At that moment, her stomach growled. She was hungry.

'Fine,' she whispered to her tummy.

'I'll leave the clothes down on the floor outside the door here. I've got to go back into the kitchen. I've left stuff going on the hob.'

'Thank you. Some food would be great,' she called back.

'Oh. Good. Okay, come through to the kitchen when you're ready.'

She put the towel back on the rail, feeling slightly silly that she had felt the need to cover herself just to talk through a solid door. She walked across the room and took the dressing gown off the hook. It was a lovely gown. Big and soft and fluffy. It felt wonderful and cosy against the full length of her body as she wrapped it around herself.

It did not feel quite enough though. She still felt very naked underneath. Having tied the cord tight around her waist, she gingerly slid the bolt back on the door. She opened it a crack and peeped out into the hallway.

There was no-one there.

Looking down, there was a small pile of clothes on the floor. She reached out and quickly scooped up the garments, before retreating back into the bathroom and sliding the bolt back into place.

She held up the things he had left for her. There was a pair of soft tracksuit trousers and zip-up top, a woollen jumper and a shirt. From a quick appraisal of the trousers, she concluded they would slide straight off her hips as soon as she took a step. With them ruled out as far too big, she decided that the gown she was already wearing was the best item to cover most of herself up, but she did want at least something else on as well. She settled for the shirt, having concluded that anything else would actually be too hot, as gown was plenty warm enough.

She hung the gown back up on the door and slid the shirt on. It was a quality item of clothing; white linen and well tailored. When she finished doing up the buttons and rolling the sleeves up, she looked at herself in the full length mirror that stood in the corner of the room.

'Quite nice,' she murmured to herself.

Despite clearly being a man's shirt, it suited her quite well as a dress. Although in normal circumstances she would definitely be wearing underwear beneath it, as the bottom hem came only just to half way towards her knees, and it was the kind of shirt that curved upwards at the sides, which revealed rather a lot more of her upper thighs. She decided she'd probably also go for a belt, to cinch it in at the waist, as it was a bit comically baggy.

Back to the door, she pulled the dressing gown on again. This concealed from her neck to half way down her shins, so she felt a lot more covered and safer with it on.

She pulled the cord just a little tighter around her waist and put another knot on top of the first for good measure; then stepped out into the hallway.

*****

Alex was just finishing putting the food onto plates when he sensed her standing in the doorway to the kitchen. He looked over his shoulder at her and smiled.

She looked great. There was a warm glow in her cheeks now and her hair hung in a mess of short ropey locks from where she had roughly towel dried it. Noting her shins visible below the edge of the dressing gown, he concluded that she had not opted to wear the tracksuit trousers. He could not help but wonder what she did have on underneath, if anything.