The small villa that she had rented for her stay was perfect, not too secluded and certainly private, with the plunge pool to be seen from the living room window and its surface persuading you, like an optical illusion, that it was part of the sea beyond, a clever trick of the eye that had been created by the architect.
She put a hand to her greying billowing hair as the sea breeze caught it, the sliding and folding doors opening outwards and arousing a feeling of certainty for what she had decided to do while she was here. It was to be no ordinary holiday and certainly, not one to be spent on her own.
Betty knew that she wasn't here simply for the sex but an excess of it and with a man that she had chosen because of what he packed, for his rugged and tattooed appearance, the glistening tan of his skin, and the wondering look that was to be seen in his eyes, for his smile that creased a bearded face. To have chosen a male escort was a departure from everything that she had known in her life, but she longed for a radical departure from all that had gone on before in a failed marriage.
She was impatient to move on and the man that she had spoken to, and chosen, after trawling the internet for someone who lived and worked on this Balearic Island was just the man. The images she had seen on the internet listing for him had been enough, and his willingness to talk through what she, or any client, wanted had eased away her doubts on whether to go through with it.
"I will ask no questions, Betty," he had assured her in his deep, heavily accented, and captivating voice, his smile revealing brilliant white teeth against his tanned and bearded face. Vanity would have persuaded the man to have treatment to prolong his good looks, and rigorous exercise to maintain a toned body. "You have your reasons."
She had stopped herself from asking why a man of his age was still 'putting it about' in these ways, but he was so well-dressed and acted with such assurance that she believed that he was enslaved by his occupation, even by some of the women that he met and bedded. If what he charged her was anything to go by, he did well out of it.
The same could also be said of her, that she was rebelling and wanting to satisfy her hunger after a failed and, in the end, sexless marriage that anyone looking at her would find difficult to believe. Those times were behind her now and her conscience could be clear about what she had set out to do.
Everything would be made real again and her body's cravings satisfied. She would not have long to wait before she stepped out onto a quite different path and with a man she scarcely knew. Their first meeting would decide it for her; whether to continue as arranged.
♥
There was something about the Englishwoman that had persuaded him to spend more time with her than was usual with those he was paid to call on.
Betty had asked for company, through the day and night. He had agreed to be with her for three of them. She had it all worked out, how the days were to be filled, how they would sample all that the island's nightlife had to offer, and then for him to bring to her what she missed and had made so obvious in what she had said as being the reasons for finding him.
"You have it all worked out," he had said in some dismay. "You leave little for me to do."
"Oh yes I have, as you'll find out!" she had laughed and he had seen a graceful move of her hand to sweep away the tumble of her hair and on an unwavering look at him, remote as the link was; Betty's movements stretching her dress over what was to his sight a captivatingly tended but fleshy figure. It didn't belong to a woman of her age and it was her certain ways, of making all the arrangements, that drew him to her.
"Be with me the day after I arrive on the island. I will have the place just as I want it by the time you arrive, Antonio, say at three and at the harbor restaurant I told you about?"
"Seguro que si," he'd replied before lapsing back into English, but she had understood. "Until then. I also have the villa's address and I will find you."
"I'm counting on it." Betty had looked at him, suggestively, for a moment longer before the link was broken.
Betty wasn't the first woman to have told him that he looked older than other guys that were to be found on the websites that catered to a woman's particular and uncomplicated needs. His answer had been only too clear and simple.
"I like surprises in whom I am with and what we do."
Now, as he parked his convertible Audi A3 in a spare slot close to the harbor, and the place they had agreed to meet for the first time, he looked forward with keen anticipation to meeting her. If she looked as good as Betty had appeared over the ether, everything would be fine. He would see to it that it was so.
Of that, he had no doubts.
♥
"Thank you for agreeing to meet me like this," she smiled, her nervousness disappearing, almost in an instant, as she gazed at the man before her. The photos posted on the web did not do him justice, but she supposed that in mystery there also lay anticipation.
He was suave and looked so rakishly handsome in his light blue summer suit and open-necked white shirt. She resisted the temptation to lean over and kiss him, to feel the touch of his full lips on her mouth. They sipped on their drinks, chatted, and were at ease, seated under a parasol that kept at bay the fierce heat of the sun.
"You are the first who has planned everything in the way that you have, Betty," he smiled, his eyes taking in her appearance before he again put on his sunglasses. She did the same and they could each study the other as they talked and broke through the early formalities of what would be an unusual encounter, especially for her.
There was to be nothing tawdry about their arrangement, of that she was now sure, or he would not have paid her the compliment of being clothed so smartly. She had done the same, paying attention to her appearance even if those to be seen on holiday all around them were dressed so casually. They could be mistaken for a well-to-do couple who did not let their standard slip, even on holiday.
Would he kiss her, she had wondered, as he stepped forward to greet her and held out two red roses in a touch of gallantry that she had not expected.
Yes, she wanted him to kiss her and settle the anxiety she felt about what she was embarking upon with a stranger, but a man to whom she already felt insanely attracted; a man whose purpose to be with her could not be concealed by suave behavior, his sense of dress, and by the engaging look of his eyes upon her.
