The Yellow Cottage

The elderly couple left first.

"Have a great night -- do it with love," said the smiling woman, ignoring her companion's mutter of 'Bloody exhibitionists."

"Come with me and exhibit," Scott said, taking Jess by the arm after giving her a friendly pat on the butt. Jess, now really warming up, sighed heavily, changing Scott's big grin into a leer. She new she was as ready as she'd ever be.

"Go pee, clean your teeth and then stand in the corner and wait for me."

Why stand in the corner," thought Jess, and then felt her knees weaken, now aware he wanted to start by undressing her. As Scott unlocked the door she brushed past him and raced to the bathroom, flushed and eager. Jess was delighted when they'd returned to their room early. She'd changed into sexy underwear while Scott was shaving.

In less that half and hour later, she was really gurgling as they climaxed almost together. She'd never been so thoroughly undressed before and Scott had rocked her going on and on about the pretty tops to her stockings. Was that a fetish or what? He had her in an almost suppressed state of excitement as he examined her vulva. She found that a bit embarrassing although he was ogling it, saying "Pretty, pretty." That astonished her as no other man had called that part of her pretty. She was hot, rubbing one of her breasts and her heart was pounding. So she reached down with both hands and spread her lips, hoping to hurry him along.

The idiot! He'd said, "Hello, what's this? She almost screamed. He'd know quite well what it was. She wanted him -- tongue, fingers or erection. Just any of them or them all. She was so hot and she began moaning either in desperation or frustration, she didn't know which one. His tongue had circled around but not touching her clit and saying she was so pretty, so sexy and so ready for it and he'd kept touching her in places that had set her alight but had still not parted her lower lips. She just squeezed her breast, yelled and exploded, or so it seemed.

Panting, she'd pulled at his hair -- he was grinning at her -- and had said, "That has never happened like that before. Usually it comes near or at the ending. We've barely commenced."

He smiled and said "We learn something every day" and she 'd only half understood what he was on about.

Facing him on the bed, she'd gripped her legs just above the ankles and pulled them back towards her shoulders before spreading.

She'd gurgled, "Do you have you got something for me?"

The grinning idiot teased, holding something that had appeared very impressive and ready to her, asked, "Now what would that be?"

She could have killed him.

Next morning Jess had difficulty walking to the bathroom. She'd slept in his bed and as soon as she stirred after dawn they were at it again. She had no complaint and was disappointed she might not be up to the pace they were setting -- well, mainly by him. However, after a very hot bath she felt together again

Jess was just out of the bath when her gentle assailant re-appeared looking chirpy. Oh no, not again, she thought. Well he was eyeing her. But he said to meet him for a hearty breakfast in the restaurant in ten minutes. She should dress informally as they would be driving for five to six hours.

"What, leave exciting Queenstown?" she said, shocked. The reply was. "Lady you ain't seen nothing yet." He told her they would be travelling heartland New Zealand, without rush, staying at an alpine lodge near the Fox Glacier. She smiled cooperatively but wondered why anyone not out of his or her mind would want to leave Queenstown.

In the car, which she thought was some sort of Australian Holden, was almost new and very comfortable. They had a quite flick through Queenstown to look at some of the landmark places and then headed to Wanaka. "As I indicated, Queenstown is just a town, a tourist town but with a lot more go than most New Zealand towns. The time to be there is in midwinter."

"Well I was happy with what I experienced although didn't get near a shop."

"Well be happy -- you can shop at home."

Men, they just didn't understand. She hoped being grumpy wouldn't bring on car sickness. But she travelled fine and soon her spirits lifted at the majesty of the mountainous landscape. They headed onwards after late morning coffee in Wanaka and were heading between two great lakes -- Hawera on the right and then as the highway turned northwest they came to another huge lake.

"What lake is this?"

"You have the map -- it's Wanaka." She squirmed a little, knowing she looked cute the way she was dressed in warm, attractive clothing. He appeared to be delighted with her.

"I can't read maps very well. But your have either circled back and we are lost or you have identified the wrong lake."

He grinned making her glad she was having sex with him. He was an almost perfect catch.

"It's Wanaka," he claimed. "We're well north of the town."

"I don't believe you. How long is Lake Wanaka?"

"It doesn't run in a straight line. It is a glacial lake basin and from memory is almost fifty kilometres long."

"Oh, that will be Lake Wanaka. Where does this highway take us?"

"To Haast on the West Coast via the Haast Pass through the Southern Alps. It's a magnificent drive."

Jess said the trip was providing her with a different perspective of her country. Scott said she was in 'big country' with few people -- Mt Aspiring was a tad over 3000 metres high and the Mt Aspiring Park of some 300,000 acres in size was part of New Zealand's World Heritage classified parkland.

They took their time, pulling off to go to signposted lookouts and arrived late afternoon to visit Fox Glacier and then continued the short distance to the Franz Joseph Glacier to their Alpine Lodge. They decided to relax over a drink and visit the glacier in the morning.

She said, "I would have thought we could have stayed a week each in Queenstown, Wanaka and Mt Aspiring Park and not seen everything or done everything."

"Yeah, overseas people call New Zealand 'small' but get them out in the wide open spaces and they boggle, often being blown away by the grandeur and scarcely seeing anyone else around. Should we go to our room for a while?"

"Er, all this activity Scott. I've taken a bit of a hammering. I really need to work up to speed."

To her relief he didn't appear angry at missing out. "That's cool. After leaving here tomorrow we'll spend some time in Greymouth and go on to spend the night at Westport, then have a couple of nights in Nelson and a couple of nights in Blenheim and we then fly home."

"Oh, I'll be ready for some action in Westport Scott as there won't be much else to do there, will it?"

"It depends on your interests, your desire to learn and to make the effort to expose yourself to new environments."

"Okay, Mr Traveller, teach me how to become an accomplished traveller and how to meet those objectives."

"Certainly Miss Turner."

"Ooh. You've remembered my surname."

"Well the air attendants called you Miss Turner and you registered for accommodation as Miss Turner and considering what I have been doing with you I would think I know you rather intimately, don't you think?"

"Get me another drink please," Jess requested, cheeks burning through her soft smile.

CHAPTER 3

Arriving home, Jess put on a brave face as Scott drove away from the yellow cottage, here heart was heavy. Life would not be the same again for her, she felt strongly about that. On the flight home from the South Island Scott had told her he wished to see more of her -- she knew he meant more frequently as he'd examined her body minutely, several times. He said but only if that's why she wanted. She'd said yes please and they sealed that undertaking with a kiss.

That meant she now had a close, very close, male friend, however tenuous the link between them remained. Apart from that night at Franz Joseph she'd given him a great time in bed and he'd heaped her with praise for her -- she thought for a moment to recall one great utterance: 'The administration of your expert endeavours was almost beyond belief'. Flushed with her new sense of sexual worth Jess had clamped him during their second session, making the sweat and groans pour from him, his eyes virtually disappear into his sockets and he rolled off, gasping, "What the fuck did you do to me?" Until that moment of triumph, forcing him to hit the wall of his performance, she'd though reading a sex manual had been a waste of time. No one had told her about that technique the manual had described in detail. She mentally advanced that manual into her top category of 'worthwhile reads'.

Yes, having a near-resident seducer would change her isolation. If she were in a writing flow and he came knocking, she'd pay the price in having that isolation disturbed, strangling her literary output. On the flip side, if her Scott didn't come knocking when she thought he should she'd begin to worry and her confidence would be undermined and probably her writing output would suffer. Oh dear. What do I want?

As Jess unpacked her travel bag she though she could adapt -- partial isolation might be a brilliant compromise. The South Island trip had thrust them together and not only sexually. He was an excellent tutor in some ways. He was in no small way teaching her to think about the environment around her, even to view it in sharper focus. Scott was also influencing her to upgrade her thinking in other directions, particularly to listen to and properly consider any alternative view rather rushing in to champion her view. He'd explained they mostly weren't her views anyway because original thought was very much rarer than what one might think. She'd never really thought about that until he raised it. He was so profound in a number of ways and yet not better than her in others and she was stronger in some. For instance, just a tiny thing, she'd confessed to him she had difficulty in reading maps and forty-eight hours later he confessed he really couldn't cook. That suggested they'd make a great team but she kept that thought to herself. She didn't want him guessing she might be thinking a long-long affair.

Jess's pulse rate jumped. She was amazed that thought had slid furtively into her mind. She attempted to brush it away but was only partially successful. So she turned the radio up loud and busied herself with housework. That worked beautifully although she was aware the thought had simply filed itself away. She began visualizing how to re-start her novel to end her emotional bout of introspective thinking. That worked.

Just before midnight her phone went, waking her. She switched on the light and checked for caller ID. It was Scott.

"Yes," she yawned.

"I have something hard and warm in my hand and don't know what to do with it."

Calmly she said, "Want me to come over and gobble it?"

Jess had never suggested she would be willing to do that to any guy. Usually it just happened.

She heard him catch his voice and he said, "That's rather a hot comment to hear over the phone." She was pleased to catch a smile in his voice. She hoped he wouldn't ask had she hauled out her dildo.

"Lunch tomorrow?"

"Yes, let's have a picnic," she said. "There's a walking track through the bush on the other side of the river with a picnic table in a clearing at the top of the bluff overlooking the sea. But weren't you going to the university to see about tutoring or assisting with research?"

"I'm changing that to the next morning."

"That's excellent. Good luck. We'll walk over the highway bridge, as the tide will be on the way up-river. What time?"

"Eleven thirty?"

"That's fine. Jess suddenly experienced a brainstorm. She knew she was so happy that he'd called her. She knew she had to say it right now before she had time to debate the issue and lose confidence. "Ponder this question and give me the answer over lunch tomorrow: Please consider moving in with me. Bye."

Jess hadn't wondered about the proprietary of asking a man such a question or had taken time to worry about what Scott would think of being hit like that. She switched off the light, turned over and almost immediately fell asleep.

A fine dawn just lighting the sky greeted Jess as she pulled open the drapes of the living room and looked across the river. She'd awakened abruptly, a plan of action already firmly in mind and had no reason to change it. She booted her laptop and sent her latest manuscript to the graveyard -- her software shredding it although it had been backed up to DVD. That was eighty-seven pages of hard work -- too hard in her opinion -- of creative writing aborted and probably twenty or more days of research as well. The setting for that work had been a hospital, her first attempt at a medical drama. All up, a writing effort spanning seven weeks including planning. Good riddance. At last she'd had the courage to withdraw with dignity from a genre for which she appeared totally unsuited.

Two of the most impressive people Jess had met in a very long time had appeared in a dream just before dawn -- Fiona and Angus Macdonald. She'd decided to create a novel based loosely, very loosely, on their story. Fiona would become Wilma De Vries (a girl De Vries was two classes ahead of Jess in her first year at high school). Wilma was the head-strong daughter of Dutch immigrants and at the age of twenty-two was wooed and won by Angus Forbes. Angus was the only child of a second generation of Scottish immigrants who farmed 3500 Merino sheep and cattle thirty kilometres east of Wanaka towards Tarras. He took over the farm shortly after his marriage, his parents retiring to Wanaka.

The concept excited Jess, just as Fiona and Angus had excited her when she met them in Queenstown. She'd felt they were extra-ordinary people, very strong in character and would be people to win through. She believed in them totally as characters and was confident she'd build a worthy story around them. She already had a great feel for their environment -- their farm would be flat, running into gentle hills and then into high country. She knew she'd loved researching for such a novel.

* * *

Within an hour Scott arriving home from his holiday, Razor was at him to be taken for a walk. Scott went to the ocean beach and as a big dog loped in, ears flattened, ready to take a piece out of Razor, Scott charged at the bully yelling 'Asshole!' The interloper veered away whining. It's owner, an attractive brunette hanging half out of her top scowled at Scott and bent down to pat 'My pretty boy.' Scott was surprised to find after seeing even more when she bent down to pat the bully he appeared to have no interest in her as a sex object. Hmmm, he thought perhaps he was tuckered out after the hot action in the South Island or perhaps he was entering into some sort of alignment with Jess for giving herself so completely to him? "Oh-oh," he muttered. That was enough of that kind of thinking for the moment.

After Jess's midnight call he snapped the phone shut, his mind in a whirl. He'd not picked Jess to have the guts to invite him to move in with her. He palmed his chin, not knowing what to think. He decided to think about it over coffee but as soon as he reached the kitchen his mother's bedroom light was on so he pulled out a tea bag for her. Her Basil was in Wellington, returning in the morning with a backload of freight for the trucking company that employed him.

"Ah, I was going to call out but thought you'd see my light on, clever boy," said his mother. "I heard you take a call a few minutes ago. That was a very late call."

And that's a diplomatic way of finding out who called, Scott thought. Why not come clean?

"Mom, I didn't travel alone to the South Island. I took Jess with me."

"Oh, I thought as much. She disappeared at exactly the same time. It was honest but unnecessary to tell me."

Encouraged by his mom's relaxed manner, Scott decided to drop the bombshell, changing it around a bit in deference to a lady.

"Jess was inviting me to picnic with her tomorrow. I suggested moving in with her."

"Oh yes."

"I asked her to give me her decision over the picnic lunch."

Scott was aware his mother had turned pale and the cup she held was rattled in the saucer.

"This will embarrass me greatly Scott, and also your father. This will cloud my life for weeks."

"Bazz (Basil) will grin, thump me on the back and congratulate me. You can lessen the length of impact by telling that old woman in the store. The news will be all over the village within twenty-four hours, guaranteed."

"Since when have you been calling your father Bazz? The woman who owns the store is Mrs Peg Perkins and I suppose telling her is rather a good idea as she knows both you and Jess."

"Well then, all over Rover."

"No it certainly isn't. There are moral and religious and social issues to discuss here young man."

"Mum, do you and Bazz have sex? You are both getting on a bit."

As the cup clattered on the saucer, Marion told her son that was enough. He could return to his own room. She'd talk to him about the issues in the morning when he wasn't so hyped up.

At opening time next morning Mrs Perkins was recording the meters on the two petrol pumps outside her store when Scott walked up to her. "Hello Razor, good morning Scott."

"Mrs um."

"It's Perkins but call me Peg young man."

"Um, mum is worried."

The pace at which the woman's smile was replaced with a very heavy frown surprised Scott. "Oh, Marion hasn't had a cancer scare has she?"

"Cancer?" he queried, wondering how that had jumped into the conversation. "No, I've asked Jess Turner is I could move in with her. We've discovered we have a particular attachment -- novel writing. I also told her I thought she was beautiful and kissed her and she was so overcome with emotion that when I asked could I move in with her and be her literary consultant 24/7, she almost passed out but managed to whisper "Yes, I've been thinking a lot about you when I see you walking your dog along the beach twice a day."

"Oh my, how utterly romantic. I promise not to tell anyone."

"Peg, please tell everyone as it will inform everyone and lessen the embarrassment my mother expects to face. Please Peg?"

"Well, since you've asked and attached such a compelling reason for telling people I guess I can obliged, not being one to gossip as everyone knows."

Scott beamed to make her feel important. "Thank you Peg. You are a worthy villager."

"Oh am I Scott? What a lovely thing to say to me. Listen Scott, Jess was in here half an hour ago buying items for a picnic lunch, enough for two people. I'll hand you something with my compliments in a moment and just remember I keep a full range of supplies for couples who are sexually active under the counter, confidentially guaranteed."

"That's lovely Peg but I'm in no hurry to press Jess for sex," Scott said, looking innocent. "I have the feeling she's rather shy and it could be some time before intimacy occurs -- if it does. I'll be obliged to remain on my best behaviour."

Scott hurried off while Peg remained speechless. He thought he'd told Peg enough and in such a way she'd not describe him as an opportunist attempting to worm favours from Jess under the guise of attempting to tutor her on the finer points of writing.

Scott and Razor returned home to find Marion had breakfast ready for them. Scott groaned as he saw both the Bible and 'The Family Sex Manual' open beside his mother's plate on the table.

"Scott, about last night. I feel obliged to..."

"No mother, I turn thirty next month. You keep your educational inclinations to yourself and I'll forget I ever asked how many times a night you and Bass have sex."

"How many times A NIGHT," Marion echoed, her face turning pale.

"Oh, I've told Peg Perkins that I've coerced Jess to allow me to move in with her to assist her with some of the finer points of novel writing and hopefully that will lead us into a little fling. She doesn't know I was sleeping with Jess in the South Island."