The Education of Mrs Jones

[This is a sequel toAn Apology in the Morning.]

It was late on a Saturday morning when the knock came at the door, not loud but repeated persistently. Ed Friar wasn't expecting visitors, and wasn't sure who would knock like that, but he went to answer the sound without any concern. Barely had he opened the door, though, when Kate Jones pushed through it and into the flat. She was three years older than his fifty-two, and six inches shorter than him, but she was clearly in a state of barely restrained fury, and she moved him and the door aside by sheer force.

"Kate?" he said, "What brings you..."

"This!" Kate snapped, pushing a small item into his hands, then standing back to stare at him accusingly through her thick-lensed glasses. Ed looked at the item in puzzlement, and saw that it was a disc of some kind – a CD or DVD – in a plain transparent envelope. The only marking on it was hand-written:

TO MUM, WITH ALL OUR LOVE. (WATCH IMMEDIATELY!)

With a sinking sensation, Ed recognised his son Nicholas' handwriting, and guessed what the disc must contain.

"How did you get hold of this?" he asked.

"It was posted to me. Anonymously." Kate snapped.

"Oh, Christ." Ed's shoulders slumped. "It must have come from Fiona. Look, you'd better come through and sit down."

Kate did as she was invited, although her manner made it clear that she wanted no pleasantries from Ed. Once she was seated, she stared at him hard. "You do know what it is, then?"

"I've got a pretty good idea, although I never would have expected Fiona to pass it on to you. That's twisted, even for her."

"Twisted? Twisted is what's on that disc."

"You've watched it, then? Has anyone else?"

"I couldn't move to stop it playing, though I wanted to be sick. But don't worry, nobody else..."

"Hey, Ed, how would you fancy... Oops, sorry, didn't know you had visitors."

Ed didn't think that he would ever be unhappy to see Gina Carlyle fresh from the shower and wearing nothing but a skimpy towel, but he had to admit to himself that this was probably not the best time for that vision to manifest. Fortunately, Gina turned on her heel and disappeared in haste, with just a flash of buttock as she went.

The room was in frozen silence for a some seconds, and then Kate stared at the door. "That," she began, "That was one of the girls from – from that disc."

"I'm afraid so" Ed admitted.

"You know," said Kate, breathing deeply, "I was really holding out some sort of hope that this might be some kind of sick joke. That somebody had discovered some sort of blue movie with an actor who looked just like you, and had decided to make trouble for you."

Ed sighed. "I don't suppose that anyone anywhere makes blue movies with actors who look like me," he said. "and anyway, I assume that Nick – ah, that Nicholas is on there too."

"Yes he is, you – you pervert!" Kate was nearly shouting now, but the exchange was broken by the return of Gina, who had hastily donned a pair of leggings and a t-shirt with a surreal artistic design on it. She smiled sweetly as she entered the room.

"Hi," she said, "very sorry about that."

"Ah, Gina, this is Kate, an old friend. Kate, this is Gina, a..."

"A new friend," Gina supplied. She sat down and found Kate staring at her.

"Itisher" Kate snarled.

"I'm who?" Gina asked, puzzled.

"Kate has seen you on this, I'm afraid," said Ed, gesturing with the disc.

"Oh what? Is that Nick's DVD?" Ed nodded sadly. "How did that happen?"

"I assume that Fiona passed it onto her" Ed explained.

"Why would she do a thing like that?"

Ed sighed. "You know Fiona. We might have guessed that she'd spread trouble around."

Gina was meeting Kate's glare with an artless expression. Suddenly, she nodded. "Oh yeah, you must be Kate Jones, right? The one who Ed wasn't screwing?"

"Ibegyour pardon?"

Gina giggled. "Oops. That came out all wrong. But Nick told me about things, though – how Ed was lending you a hand when your husband was in hospital, and his cow of a wife decided that you and him were up to something and chucked Ed out, despite that Ed was being a perfect gentleman as usual."

Kate nodded, admitting the truth of the summary despite her rage. "It was all thoroughly unpleasant," she said.

"I'll bet. I've had Mrs Friar being a bitch to me, too, so I know what it's like. Anyway, how is your husband now?"

This was typical of Gina, Ed thought. She was a mistress of the slightly skewed conversational follow-on. It was part of her charm.

"He's home now" Kate replied, falling into the pattern of stock social responses, "but he's still bed-bound. Fortunately, I've got help looking after him – one of his sisters is there today..."

She trailed off, evidently realising that she'd been diverted for her reason for coming here. There was an awkward silence.

"Look," said Ed, "I'm extremely sorry that you saw that disc. It was my son's idea to send it to Fiona; he has a bit of a twisted sense of humour, I'm afraid, and he decided that this was the best way to persuade her that the mind games she'd been playing with all of us weren't going to work..." But then he trailed off, seeing that Kate was weeping. Gina quickly moved to sit beside her, passing her a box of tissues.

"Ed," Gina said, "go make us all some tea, why don't you?"

Ed was happy to obey. When he returned, however, Gina intercepted him in the corridor, lifting two mugs off the tray he was carrying. "It's okay," she said, "I reckon she just needs someone to talk to."

"Fine" said Ed. "I can handle that again..."

"No," said Gina, "not this time. I think that she's a bit confused about what to think about you, now that she's seen that disc. Hard to treat someone as a brother who you've seen being fucked brainless by two crazy girls."

"You were on the disc too!"

"Yeah, but I'm still a stranger to her, and I think that's actually helping. Plus, I think a bit of girl talk might help. You go and put your feet up; I'll take it from here."

Ed obeyed, slumping in his bedroom with a book as the hum of female voices came from the living room. Then, after nearly an hour, Gina put her head around the door.

"We're going out for a bit," she said, "catch you later."

"Where are you going?"

"Just shopping," Gina said. "It's a girlie thing, you know."

"I'm not sure it's really a Kate thing."

Gina shrugged. "She needs a break," she said.

In fact, it was early evening by the time that the two women returned; Ed had been to the pub for lunch, paid some bills, and finished two books. Gina steered Kate into the sitting room and Ed outside.

"Nowshe needs to talk to you," she said.

"About anything in particular?" Ed asked.

"Oh, just stuff, I imagine" Gina shrugged. "But by the way, did she tell you that she watched that DVD all the way through?" Gina leaned towards Ed, speaking in a soft, urgent voice. "Think about that;all the way through. If that doesn't tell you something, you're more stupid than I thought."

Gina vanished from the flat and Ed found Kate sitting on the sofa, looking far more relaxed than in the morning. She looked up. "Hello," she said.

"Hello," Ed said. "You've changed – the clothes, I mean." It was true; when Kate had arrived that morning, she'd been wearing a shapeless cardigan over a faded purple blouse, and a knee-length tweed skirt. Now, she was wearing a plain black dress, high at the neck and slightly loose-fitting, with a matching black lace shawl.

She shrugged, but smiled slightly. "We went shopping," she said. "Anyway, I really must apologise for making such ascenethis morning. It was silly of me."

Ed shrugged. "Not at all. God knows what, well, anyone would do if they received a present like that."

"Well, we know what Fiona did."

"Yes... But anyway, it's Nick who sent the disc, and me and Gina and Louise who let him."

Kate giggled nervously. "It was quite a joke on her, I must say. Gina explained how Fiona was so unpleasant to all of them."

"Well, yes."

"But anyway, I don't want to talk about that. The second thing I have to say is this..."

"Yes?"

Kate gathered her thoughts, then took her glasses off and put them on the coffee table. Her vision was genuinely poor, Ed knew, and she leaned closer towards him to focus on his face. "You know that I love Ian. Always have, always will. He's my husband forever, and I would never change that."

"Yes..." Ed began, but Kate raised her hand.

"But the fact is, now, he's... Not very functional. Bed-bound is only the half of it. He's my husband, but not my lover. He's my patient. I manage, but oh dear – I do need a break sometimes."

Ed shifted uneasily. "Go on," he said.

"Gina is a clever girl, you know, and she said something about you today. She said that you were a gentleman, and I agreed. Then she said – she's wonderfully brash, that girl – she said,That's really great, because gentlemen are great in bed."

Ed coughed a little. "If that's true, I'm afraid it's because we know when to stop being gentlemen."

"That's not how Gina explained it, when I asked. Actually, I should admit that's not what she said." She paused, then said with a rush "She saidgentlemen make great fucks."

"Oh, dear." Ed rubbed his brow. "She's very sweet, Gina, but she does say whatever she's thinking, and she can't keep things private to save her life."

"I like her." Kate rose to her feet and stood in front of Ed. "And I hope she's right, because I asked her permission – imagine, a woman of my age askingpermissionfrom a little thing like that – and she said I could find out for myself. So please, show me what gentlemen do. I... I need you."

Ed gasped. "I'm flattered," he said, "but..."

Kate's face fell into tragic sadness. "You don't want me" she said.

"No, no, you're... I want you. I just want to be sure that this won't lead to trouble later."

"There'll be no later," said Kate, "at least not that way. It's just so long since – since I had anyfun, at least of that sort. And that disc makes it very clear that you regard sex as something you can enjoy for fun, without any commitments."

"That's my son's way of thinking, I'm afraid," said Ed. "Nicholas is a very bad influence."

"Yes, young people can be such bad influences, can't they?" said Kate, "at least if we're lucky..."

But by then, Ed had stood up, and he took her in his arms and kissed her. He considered giving her one more chance to back out, but he decided that would just seem like an insult. Anyway, he remembered long, hard weeks of listening to her troubles, taking her mind off them with chat, carefully treating her as a friend, enjoying the warmth of her company, and then going home to a cold reception and nofunfor him. He hadn't realised then quite how frustrating that time had been.

"Come on," he said.

As they moved into the bedroom, Kate broke away, pulled the curtains closed, and then turned the light out. But Ed turned it back on immediately.

"No," he said, "if there's one thing I've worked out since ... the divorce, it's that, if you can't bear to look at the person you're in bed with, you shouldn't be with them in the first place. I've been there. Not again."

Kate froze for a moment, but then she smiled tentatively. "I'll take your word for that, Edward," she said, "and I suppose that there are things you'll want to see. But please – don't compare me to those young women, will you? I can't compete with them."

"It's not a competition," Ed replied, unbuttoning his shirt. "Anyway, you'll have to look at my old body."

Kate moved closer, touching and kissing his chest. "You know, I want to do just that" she said. "Even if I have to lean close and squint." Ed remembered that she'd left her glasses in the living room. Then she turned her back to him. "Could you unzip me, please?"

Ed obeyed, and then sighed appreciatively as Kate removed the dress. "Do you like it?" Kate asked, "Gina helped me choose it. She quite bullied me into it, to tell the truth."

Kate didn't have much of a figure – people tended to describe her as dumpy – but Gina evidently had something of an eye. She'd dressed Kate in a corseted creation in black and dark crimson, with multi-layered ruffles and lace-edged satin, and seamed stockings with lace-trimmed tops to complete the effect; if the result was something like an extravagantly over-wrapped gift that rustled and fluttered every time she moved, it was a gift that Ed found himself wanting to open.

"It's great," he said. "It suits you."

Kate kicked her shoes off; Ed realised that they were a pair of sandals with enough height in the heels to help show off her legs. "That's a relief, to be honest," she said, "I'm out of practice with heels." Then she sat on the edge of the bed and looked at him. "Bloody damn, I'm out of practice with a lot of things. What comes next?"

"That's a matter of taste" said Ed, discarding his shirt and then kicking off his own shoes and socks, "but maybe this."

He unfastened and removed his trousers. Under the influence of the two girls who Nicholas had brought into his life, he'd taken to wearing black boxer shorts, loose enough to remain cool – as he insisted to the girls, despite their joking flattery, he didn't have enough to show off with anything tight. Nonetheless, he realised that the current pair were raised outward at the front.

Kate stared hard at them, then reached forward with a tentative hand, cupping his cock and balls through the soft fabric. "Yes," she said, "yes, please."

Ed bent forward to kiss her, pushing her backwards to lie on the bed, and moved beside her. She closed her eyes and returned his kisses voraciously, greedily, and for a few moments they lay side by side, almost innocently, embracing and kissing. But Ed didn't think that Kate's desires were innocent – not given the murmurs and moans that she made as she kissed him. So he rose from her kisses, and carefully grasping the ruffled french knickers she was wearing, slid them down her legs to the floor.

Kate moaned faintly, and Ed buried his face in her cunt, and set to work with his lips and tongue. Gina and her friend Louise had been giving him plenty of practice at this recently, and he thought that he had the technique down right by now. But Kate reached down with both hands, grasped his head, and lifted it up so he faced her.

"Edward," she said, "that's obscene."

"Oh," he said, "I'm..."

"I just thought that you ought to know. Now carry on."

He obeyed, as she wrapped her thighs – plump, perhaps, but pleasing in their softness – around his head. Then, suddenly, she moaned and cried out, and he realised how desperate and ready she'd been.

She grasped his head again, lifting it away from her crotch, and he stood up. She sat on the edge of the bed, and yanked his boxer shorts down with sudden excitement.

"Ooh," she said, "yesplease." Then she kissed his cock, hesitantly at first, then repeatedly, excitedly.

"Just a moment," said Ed, "I'll get..."

"What?"

"Condoms," he explained.

"Oh, dear, no, don't bother. I'm past worrying about getting pregnant, and I've seen for myself that you're careful with other people..."

Ed didn't argue; the urges from his rigid cock hardly made him inclined to quibble, as Kate lay back, pulled her knees wide apart, and smiled at him. Kneeling between her thighs, he plunged into her, then paused, rocking his hips very gently, to savour the moment.

"Ah," said Kate, "you know, you really do have a very nice prick? Fills my cunt –ah– beautifully. Please fuck me harder."

Ed frowned. "You know, Gina has been averybad influence on you," he said.

"Don't blame that poor girl for everything. Iama married woman, you know – I know what those words mean. And to judge by that video, she had quite an influence on you. And Isaid, fuck me harder."

Something about having the strength of his fucking questioned by Kate Jones –Kate Jones!– drove Ed into a sudden frenzy, and he began pounding her into the bed as hard and fast as his hips could thrust. However, this proved to be exactly what she did want; she responded at first with sharp moans that grew into shrill moans before exploding into an orgasmic scream. He slowed his thrusts, and she stared him in the eyes and gave a wriggle of her hips beneath him.

"Yes, that's right" she said. "Now, Edward..."

With a sudden move, she pushed him over onto his back, putting herself on top of him. The dramatic burst of fucking had disarrayed her fancy new lingerie, and her breasts had come free. They weren't large, and her age showed, but they had large, dark nipples. Ed sat up abruptly, rocking Kate backward and causing her cunt to push against his crotch, and began tonguing them, damply and lecherously.

"Oh yes," said Kate, "yes, yes, yes, yes, Yes!"

Ed agreed, but restrained himself for a few minutes as they rocked together on the bed, by which time Kate had evidently recovered enough energy to reach another loud orgasm. Only then did her erupt into her, thrusting upwards so hard that her breasts battered his face.

Then he collapsed backward onto the bed, and Kate leaned forward over him, smiling broadly. "Thatwasfun!" she said, and then rolled sideways and off him with a gasp.

"Mmm-hmm," Kate said a few minutes later, sitting cross-legged on the bed. "You know, I think that I've wanted that for quite a long time now."

"You only think?"

Kate laughed, but a little sadly. "We neither of us thought that we could admit it, did we? Which meant that I couldn't think about you and sex at the same time in any way. I couldn't let myself. When I watched that video, I had to think about everything except what was actually happening on it. Actually, all I was thinking wasThat's disgusting – those poor girls are young enough to be his daughters!"

Ed nodded, remembering that Kate's own children were in fact a bit older than Gina or Louise.

"And I was probably rather short with poor Gina to begin with," Kate went on. "I was thinking of her as some kind of – I don't know, a scheming trollop, I suppose. Before I met her, I thought that shemightbe some poor thing you'd filled up with drink, but she clearly wasn't that, so I wasn't sure if she might be wanting to get her hooks into you or something. But she turned out to be so..."

"Likeable?" asked Ed.

"That, but straightforward, too. She's so obviously honest. After a while, well, I had to believe her when she said that she just wanted to have fun with you, and that you were fun to – to fuck. And then I realised that I wanted to have that fun with you too. And now..." She smiled sheepishly, an odd expression on her mature face "...now I don't know how long I've wanted that."

"We've got some catching up to do" Ed commented.

"Yes," Kate agreed, "but now I've got to be going home." She straightened her underwear, gathered up the frilled french knickers and put them back on, and pulled the black dress back on over her head.

Ed helped zip it up again. "You're welcome back here any time you want" he said.

"Thank you" said Kate, putting her new shoes on. "I may well accept that invitation."

"And, ah, if you let me know that you're coming, I'll try and make sure that you don't have too any more embarrassing meetings with other friends when you get here."

"Oh, dear, no I can't promise to warn you," Kate had seemingly developed a mischievous little smile sometime in the last few hours, Ed noticed. "That would take all the spontaneity out of things. I doubt that you'll have many people who know me visiting, and it's not as though I could complain about you having other girlfriends – after all, this is an extra-marital affair we're talking about. I wouldn't want you to think that I was a hypocrite."