Bryan & Carla after the Supermarket

At least Bryan was still talking to me as these embarrassing thoughts were coursing through my head. He told me he had that morning moved into one of those nice new houses at Coopers Meadow that I admired so much; even Dad thinks they are top drawer and we loved the show house, didn't we? I expect in the Army, when you are stuck on a six-months tour in Afghanistan, you get a chance to save all your salary for a deposit.

Bryan did cheer me up by saying he had kept my number on his phone, but I realise he may have just transferred his old SIM card to his new model. He said he would send me his address, so I could take a congratulations card round to him. I probably said I'd post it but It's nice and light these summer evenings, so I thought I could take Brie round in the pushchair, because it is far too far for her to walk, so I can tell him about her then. Yes, I thought that too, Mum, it would be even easier than at the BBQ, and less chance of an embarrassing scene.

Then I told him I had seen him last night, down the pub with his friends, but our conversation wasn't going really anywhere so he kissed me on the cheek. Yes, I know, just his soft lips but it was as if time slowed down and the kiss lingered. I am sure it was more than a peck, to maybe it just meant more to me than him.

But, Mum, when he kissed Brie on the forehead, I almost lost it completely.

He walked off and I pushed the trolley to the feminine products aisle until I was able to control my leaking eyes. I cuddled sweet Brie so she couldn't see my face, but she loves cuddles and didn't complain and that helped. Eventually I carried on shopping. Brie waved at someone a couple of times, I thought, but I didn't want to look up to check if it was Bryan as the redness of my eyes would give me away.

As I dabbed my eyes I saw my ring. The wedding ring I wear is the one your granny left me, there, it's thin but looks like it belongs there, doesn't it? If this was a perfect world, anyway. I don't usually wear it except down the pub, but I have been distracted since last night, so I forgot to take it off. I don't want to take it off now or I'll lose it, and I'll need it on for my shift tonight. It is only to discourage strangers from chatting me up down the pub. All the regulars know that I won't go out with anyone so they don't bother me anyway, but the new yuppies in from the luxury new houses on Coopers Meadow seem to think barmaids are a sure thing. The ring just helps. But after talking to his friends, Bryan will probably know that I never married, that is if he bothered to ask them about me, it does' sound like he did. It didn't look as if he barely remembered who I was, just another easy lay I bet. That was what I was thinking Mum, I almost started crying again. If it wasn't for the BBQ, I would've cut my losses and gone home, but I carried on through my list, right through to the charcoal and Dad's favourite sauce.

I first knew Bryan was back last night, when Ginger came up to the bar. One of the drinks was an Imperial Russian Stout, the second one I had served of the evening, it was then I remembered I had served one to Jack earlier. It hadn't really registered then because Jack isn't a regular, so I couldn't possibly know what he usually drank, it was just one of four drinks, two pints of lager, a pint of bitter and the bottle of stout with the top off and a glass. That should have told me, but after four years?

All right, Mum, now you know why I bought those six bottles four years ago and why I buy another one to add to the collection every monthly pay day. Wayne tells me that the Fisherman's Arms sells more of it than the rest of the brewery delivery round does in total. It's Bryan's favourite drink, Mum. And yes, it's almost as strong as wine and lasts a dozen or more years, getting more complex in flavour every year, like fine wines do. Maybe I'll let Bryan have the lot for old time's sake.

When we went out on our only date, I told you he drove down to the Fisherman's after the amateur dramatics play that I had tickets for, and as well as my white white wine he ordered this strong dark stout that I had never even heard of before. I remember now, because he always liked to pour it himself so he got just the right amount of head. I still see that image of him pouring carefully, concentrating on running the liquid down the side of the balloon glass and finishing with a flourish; I use the same technique behind the bar for some of the craft beers we get in and every glass I pour reminds me of him. I know I am happiest when I pour a beer like that. Some of the regulars tell me I positively glow, and say they even wait for me to be free before ordering me to pour their favourite bottled beers. Ha! Yes, it pisses off Wayne, he's the son of the pub landlord, every bloody time! No, Mum, honestly, I don't encourage the regulars to do this, but I do give them a bigger brighter smile every time I pour one. But the smile is not for them, but for absent friend.

Bryan was relaxed, smiling and laughing a lot last night in the pub. He was with his best friends, people who he liked a lot and they must've talked about joyful memories. He looked as though he was really happy and I was actually pleased for him. If anyone deserves to be happy, then he does.

I really only smile at home, Mum, you know, or when I'm with Brie. I always call her Bryanna when I introduce her to anyone, but in our family she's been Brie ever since she first started talking because that was what she called herself and it stuck. She has been a blessing to all of us. Yes, your only grandchild so far, and I could never be without her. In fact, I want to be with her every waking second, that's why I only work four nights down the pub and no lunchtimes. I might change that when she goes to school, of course, but we will see when that time comes next year.

I cuddled Brie in that supermarket car park and kissed her again, before putting her in her seat in the car. Poor girl, she bears the brunt of my sexual frustration, but she never complains, just cuddles me back with the innocence of pure love. She breaks my heart. What will I ever do without her? One day she will be all grown up and will want to replace my affection with someone who will capture her beautiful heart, while I will end up as a shrivelled old maid. No, Mum, there's no hope for me, like you and Gran, I'm a one-man woman.

So I started to put the bags of shopping in the car.

While I've broached the subject just now, let's get this straight. Of course I am sexually frustrated. Bryan was ... well he was a perfect lover. I mean I may have been a virgin at the start of our date but I wasn't a complete sexual novice. I learned with 'Cocky' Cox that a handjob was the best way to discourage him at first, then when we were in our late teens I had to step it up and resort to blow jobs and I made it my business to be thorough. Don't pretend to be affronted Mum, you made me practice on particular fruits in season, I seem to remember, passing on your knowledge as your Mum, etcetera.

Foreplay for Gary Cox was a quick breast mauling and rough finger up my snatch for a couple of minutes, but once I had a hand or a pair of lips on his cock, he just laid back and thought of England, and that was fine for me. I was safe. You had spoken to me about birth control when I was fifteen, I think, and you brought it up a few times after that, but I told you that there was little point in me taking birth control when there was no actual penetrative sex involved. Until ... you know when .. and I've already told you that after Bryan had licked my pussy for half an hour I'd've invited all the Queen's bloody horses...

Yes, that night with Bryan just opened my eyes to foreplay. I mean he was a perfect gentleman all evening. We just held hands at the play and while we sat in the pub. He asked me if I wanted to go to one of the night clubs for a disco, after a snack in the pub, but I really wanted to talk about his upcoming adventure in the Army, and you can't hear anything in those places. Also this was my last chance to see him in three long months and I wanted to make an impression that I was really interested in his future, a future I was desperate to be a part of. He suggested a walk and we just strolled around the streets and the green, holding hands and talking in the twilight of a perfectly beautiful summer evening.

Every now and then we would stop and kiss, his lovely soft lip kisses with gentle hands. Then, when I parted my teeth, we touched tongue tips only and gradually deepened our kisses and embraces, sucking my tongue into his mouth, caressing my gums, the inside of my lips, my cheek, my tongue.

Now Gary, the only other guy I ever kissed, would just jam his tongue as far into my mouth to see if he could trigger my gag reflex, and he would push my tongue back if I ever felt like exploring his mouth. After the first few attempts I never bothered putting my tongue in Gary's mouth again.

And Bryan didn't just get my motor running with mouth to mouth kissing, but when we sat on the roundabout in the kiddies' playground on the green, he kissed behind my ears and all around my neck until he drove me wild with desire, I wanted those lips on my nipples, and I wanted them there and then! And I told him so.

We didn't exactly run to his car, he was just so cool and calm, like he did this sort of thing all the time, and I guess he was so good looking that he must have done. I knew about all those Army Cadet camping outings he went on, in fact while we were chatting, he spoke about them a lot because it was a source of so many interesting experiences and adventures that he wanted to share by telling me about them. He had me wet just talking to me. And I had seen his troop, or whatever they called themselves, the the Remembrance Parades in front of the church each year. There were a lot of cute and fit chicks in the Army Cadets, so I assumed he had honed his kissing and oral skills on them. And if that was the case, then why should I miss out, after all, I had already kicked Gary to the kerb, he was history.

In the back seat of his car, we not only kissed, but we allowed our hands to wander. I wanted to get his slacks down and give him a hand job, because I thought a BJ would be too much on a first date, but no, as soon as I tried to undo his flies, he wasn't having any of that.

He clearly took my moves as a sign I wanted to get sexual, but he wanted to take control. So he lifted my blouse and kissed my stomach with lips at first, then a little tongue, then gentle teeth nipping, until I pulled my blouse and bra off and encouraged him to play with my little puppies. I've never been big breasted, even when pregnant and nursing Brie, was I? I mean, while I was preggers they "felt" ginormous from where I was behind the buggers, but the mirror didn't lie. But my nipples are really sensitive and that night they loved lots of gentle attention. And Bryan was gentle. He used his tongue and lips to kiss all around my upper body, my stomach, tits, shoulders and neck, yet he kept his tongue off my nipples until I begged him to suck on them puppies. Then he touched them with a moistened finger tip, no pinching, just gentle rubbing by fingertip and he was driving me crazy, yet he still wouldn't let me undo his flies, even though I could feel his hardness behind the cloth. I only managed to pull out his belt in all the time that he was torturing my body. I could clearly smell my arousal, and his nose was much much closer to the source than mine was. I had undone the button and zip on my skirt long before but he didn't seem to have finished what he desired to do up top yet and so I relaxed a little, so for a while I was in no hurry to move on from where he was clearly enjoying himself.

Then, finally, I felt his warm lips on a nipple, kissing and squeezing with light lip pressure, then flicking the tip with his tongue before sweeping his wet tongue around the my sensitive spot. Then he'd be off to the other nipple, leaving the first one continually sensitised by his rapidly cooling spit so it was fit to explode. Then he was back kissing my neck and a bit of French kissing and simultaneous gentle knob tuning action with the thumbs and forefingers on my fully primed nips, before kissing them again. God! He was wonderful. He could have done that all night and I wouldn't have cared or told you what planet I was on.

"Ahem!" I heard behind me in the supermarket car park while I was thinking of Bryan's opening gambit on foreplay from four years earlier. I turned and went bright red as Bryan was standing behind me, holding his single shopping bag, with a shy look on his face as if he was both happily amused but shamefacedly apologetic too. I am sure my nipples must have been pointing at him like organ stops through my light summer dress.

"Oh, Bryan!" I said, thinking that he must know I am a complete moron as I have been away with the bleeding fairies again for what must've been five minutes. Me, a fit mother to look after his child, even though he didn't know Brie was his child? I wasn't fit for anything just then, my knees were so weak I was leaning on that empty bloody trolley for support while I had been reliving our old date, the only memorable date I had ever had in my life.

"Hi Carla," he started.

At least he was still smiling, and he was looking straight at my face and eyes instead of staring at my engorged nipples, which were sending me the sort of signals that made me suspect they were glowing brighter than those Belisha Beacons on the High Street.

"I am sorry I was so unbelievably gauche earlier when you invited me to your BBQ, Carla. Of course I would love to come and it would be great to see your Mum and Dad again. I travel light, so I really don't have that much stuff to unpack at home tomorrow, I know I would regret not coming. And it would be really nice to see you and Brie again, maybe I could show you around my new place at some time, it could probably do with some ideas from a woman's perspective."

"It would be nice, Bryan, Mum and Dad would love to see you again, and you remember my brothers, don't you?"

"All four of them?"

"Yes, my brothers are going to be there, with their girlfriends." I was grinning like a mad thing, but his smile started to wane, so I added, "plus me and Brie, of course. You should know, I only wear this wedding ring to fend off the guys at the pub. It belonged to my great grandmother."

Oh no! I thought "That's fucked it!" He thinks I'm a round heeled slut with a fatherless child, pretending to be a married round heeled slut, but fortunately he smiled again.

"Look," he said, "I'll take that poor trolley that you are strangling back to the pound so you can get this frozen stuff home before it all defrosts. Do you want me to come back with you to help you unload?"

No, no, I thought, this is too soon. I thought if you were at home before me, Mum, that you might frighten him off. I needed to set the scene, not least with you first.

"No, I can manage, Bryan." I said, "I'll see you at say, noon?"

"Perfect, look forward to it. Do you want me to bring anything?"

"No, just yourself ... and any significant other." Bugger! Why'd I say that?

"Just plain ol' me, then. See you tomorrow. Bye, Carla, bye Brie."

He took the trolley from me and, with one hand preventing the trolley rolling away, he hooked an arm around my waist and drew me into one of his soft lips-only kisses that I had dreamed about for four years, two months and seven days.

Then he released me and shared with me that beautiful smile that had my knees dissolving to jelly. I reversed the car out of the family parking bay, looking in the mirror. Bryan was in the middle of the lane behind me, waving goodbye. I waved back and drove home, trying to hold back the tears.

"Bryan," Brie said, simply a statement of fact, as I drove along.

"Yes, that was Bryan, he's nice, isn't he?"

I could see her nod as she played with the doll I keep on the back seat for her, "Bryan nice," she agreed.

I sat her down in front of the television to watch "Peppa Pig", while I loaded up the fridge. No point in putting anything in the freezer, I wanted it all to defrost by the morning. I gave her a squeezy strawberry yoghurt drink to keep her busy watching the TV, while I sat in the corner of the settee and cried quietly.

I heard you come in, Mum, and say to Brie when you greeted each other with a kiss and cuddle, "And what did you do, today, darling?"

"We saw Bryan," Brie giggled, "we like Bryan, don' we, Mummy?"

"Yes," I croaked, a lump in my throat.

"Your Bryan?" you asked me, as you moved towards me, seeing my need for comfort.

I nodded and you sat next to me, Mum, and pulled me into your arms just as I could hold the flood back no longer.

"What's wrong, Mummy, no you like Bryan?" Brie came and buried her head in my lap. Both you and I rested a hand on her dear sweet head.

"I like Bryan a lot, Darling," I said. "Really I do."

I whispered in your ear, Mum, in a voice that I was certain Brie couldn't hear, "Mum, I want to tell her that he's her Daddy, but I don't want to break her heart if it all goes wrong. One broken heart in the family's enough."

TO BE CONTINUED