Mask and Other Stories

Nesta Tuomey

Description

Love trysts in suburbia, romance in Spain. Menomadness, the prize-winning lead story, tells of May, taking nude rambles in the woods and feeding her lust on erotica until Stan, the service man, happens by to romp with her in her big featherbed.

Informations

• Publié par: Nesta Tuomey
• Date de parution: 18 septembre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783012299
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE MASK AND OTHER STORIES
Nesta Tuomey
* * *
2013 Nesta Tuomey
Nesta Tuomey has asserted her rights in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by Nesta Tuomey
First published in eBook format in 2013
ISBN: 978-1-78301-229-9
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
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Dedication
For Larry as always and in loving memory of Patrick and Winifred my parents
Short Story Index
An intriguing, sensual and poignant portrayal of modern Irish women
1. Menomadness
2. Top Girl
3. The Mask
4. Ashes
5. Sisters
6. Letting Go
7. Godsend
8. Future Generations
9. Poodles Diamonds
10. The House
11. Old Habits
12. St. Magdalen s
13. Party Piece
14. No Bad Women
15. False Alarm
16. Milkshake
17. Stopover
18. It Could Only Happen in Nerja
***
Menomadness winner of Image /Oil of Ulay Story Competition.
Top Girl published in Irish Tatler
Ashes winner of the John Power short story award at Listowel Writers Week also published in anthology Writers Week Award-Winning Short Stories 1973-1994 Edited by David Marcus
Sisters published in Woman s Way Annual
Future Generations published in IT Magazine
The House , The Mask and False Alarm broadcast on BBC.
It Could Only Happen in Nerja published in an anthology In the Shadow of the Red Queen by Bridge House.
***
Menomadness
What a fool, she thought, looking into the mirror. Slowly, she ran her fingers over her face. Old enough to be a granny and still getting het up about men!
Approaching fifty, May Duggan was taken aback by her vigorous sexual response. At a time of her life when most other women bowed to the inevitability of warm flushes and waning libido, by some strange quirk of nature May seemed to have been given an additional blast of hormones. She became prey to sexual fantasy. It took very little to set her off. A fleeting glimpse of a young cadet s cheeky little buttocks encased in tight pants was enough to feed her lust for a week, by which time some other eroticism became fuel for her lascivious imagination. She was a woman of Brunhildan proportions - breasts, belly and buttocks formed after the fashion of a more voluptuous age. Her own milky reflection dimly seen in the pocked mirror over the washstand was an add incitement. She began to explore her body in a way previously foreign to her. Sometimes it was the plush feeling of her inner thigh which mesmerised her. She would stroke her satiny flank, imagining how it would feel to a lover s hand. With fluctuating hormone levels, her breasts became tender and bursting as overripe mangoes. Palpating her nipples lazily, she would stare down at them, livid and erect, and wish it were anatomically possible for her to taste them as her husband and children had. It was as if a fire had ignited in her bloodstream. She accepted that her metabolism was disturbed. She waited for it to right itself.
She took to wearing lighter garments and impulsively flinging wide the windows. But as the weeks passed she became so highly charged that even the rub of cotton against her flesh was a sensuous delight. One particularly humid night in June, while her husband lay, an inert lump, in their featherbed, she restlessly threw back the covers and stole out to the wooded slopes behind their house, avid for the cool currents of air on her bare skin. The thought of discovery heightened her excitement and she quivered expectantly, naked except for a pair of wellington boots. Sounds distorted by the night startled her. A wood pigeon rising with clashing wings from its perch, the jeering call of a nighthawk form the topmost tree. On hearing voices nearby, she stealthily made her way between the boles of trees, always within earshot of her unseen companions. She shadowed them to the outer perimeters of the sylvan mass and crouched, hidden by an overhanging fern, as they passed close by. She felt the ground tremble beneath their tramping feet, heard the staccato snapping of twigs grow faint as they drew further away. Careless of encounter, she openly travelled home by the main track, a pale blob in boots, an ageing wood nymph. She crooned a song. Her hormones were in riot.
Stan Secombe came down the gangway. On his shoulder he supported a canvas duffle bag. A light stubble of hair covered his chin and his eyeballs were sapped with sleep. He had a biggish head on a gangly body and the sort of cherubic face which universally appeals to women of all ages, especially those of a motherly disposition. Two nights of sleeping rough without benefit of razor or soap had detracted little from his seraphic charm. He ignored the taxis lined up outside the Ferry Terminal and set out to walk the two miles into the city. It was almost midnight. He yawned and jingled coins in his cupped hand as he moved along.
Stan had crossed the water hoping to improve his fortune. There was another reason. Expediency. Signed on for a trip to Taiwan, he had waited until only seconds before the gangplank was hoisted before bunking back on to the dock, where he kept out of sight till the ship sailed. This was the beginning of a period of enforced invisibility for Stan. It became a matter of never staying long in the one place. There were other counts against him but by using his wits he always managed to stay one jump ahead. His candid air was his greatest asset. Time and again, it had helped extricate him from fraught situations. In this new country, it was to stand him in good stead where blonde blue-eyed youth was synonymous with innocence. He played the part to the hilt. Sometimes, tiring of the role, he went slumming in the sleazy areas of the city. In the dimly lit bars he entertained his boozy companions in return for slopped glasses of beer. Below deck he had become as familiar with the seamy workings of the human mind as the ship s circuit boards and he knew instinctively the kind of indecencies they wanted to hear. When he deemed it time to leave the city, he travelled inland to a biggish town where he put his electrical apprenticeship to good use, servicing washing machines.
It was in the course of his new career that he met May. One day, in answer to a distress call from a rural area, he drove the dusty service van through narrow roads banked high with cow parsely. At the end of a rutted track he came upon the house, nestling in a hollow, against a backdrop of spruce trees. The air was filled with the sweetish stench of recently spread manure. May opened the door to him wearing a blouse hastily buttoned over straining breasts. From her exuded the timeless smell of milk and sweat. She was Aphrodite, Eve, the original Earth Mother, all rolled into one.
Come to fix your machine, luv, Stan said, nimbly stepping over the foot-scraper, Stanley s the name.
He followed her down the hall, so close that his breath brought out the goosebumps on May s neck. She had been expecting her regular repairman, old Paddy Devlin. But she wasn t complaining. Stan was the stuff of her fantasies; lean, hard, jutting. Enough tinder for a fortnight. She showed him into the tiny wash-house adjoining the kitchen. As he bent over the washing machine the sight of his taut hips effectively wiped from May s mind all thought of the absent elderly. The back door slammed and her teenage daughter flounced in.
Ma, I m starving, she squawked, like an infant deprived of the teat.
Your daughter? Stan asked, returning his smiling gaze with flattering promptness to May. Never would have thought you d be old enough to have a kid that big.
May was gratified though not fooled. She hid her pleasure in the refrigerator. Having fed her offspring, she leaned in the doorway watching Stan, a predatory glint in her eyes. He glanced around.
Your programmer s kaput, he announced with gleeful regret, A new one s going to cost you, what with labour and VAT on top of everything.
His words barely rippled the surface of May s awareness. Whatever else they had to do without in her household it wouldn t be the washing machine, not with the heavy loads she had to cope with. Stan left with a promise to return next day. Thoughts of him kept her scorched into the small hours when she forsook the connubial couch to air-bathe on the moonlit slopes. In the morning she had a wild-eyed look. She watched the clock until midday, when Stan s van nosed its way up the lane. She trembled as she went to open the door. In the cramped wash-house he bumped against her, triggering wet spasms of pleasure. She was further excited by thoughts of him taking her, there and then, on the heaps of creased laundry. May s inventiveness with regard to place and position had never been met by her husband whose technique in twenty years had not varied. Stan soon had the machine clicking through its paces. May took time off from her baking to make tea and to butter thick slices of soda bread. Sitting opposite him, she eased the buttons on her blouse and with a floury, fidgeting hand, drew discreet attention to her nudity.
That s what I like about the folks over here, Stan said, Hospitable. Friendly. Back home they wouldn t give you the steam off their piss.
Stan s vulgarity was one of the things May liked about him. Unlike her prudish husband who cloaked everything in euphemism. She threw back her head and laughed. Stan stared into the pink wet cavern and felt his loins ache