It Was Never A Waste Of Time
A sequel to 'Wasted By Love' and 'Moments Not To Be Wasted'
Mabel's text message, sent in the middle of their working day, was to the point and certainly caught him off guard. As the team was taking a break from the concreting work, they had stopped for a brew, he took the opportunity to read it.
'Frank's walked out on me, again, and he won't be coming back. I'd sure appreciate it if you could call me. Do that for me, please, Darryl darling? Mum'
The woman that he had pictures of, stored on his iPhone, had not called herself 'Mum' for months and whenever they were in contact. Their relationship had been turned on its head shortly after Frank had left them for the first time. Now, he was gone again, and it left him wondering if Mabel expected help in picking up the pieces of her life again.
A favourite picture was a surprise snap that he had taken one morning, the sharp definition of the picture taken with his iPhone and of a woman in her soft yellow bra and panties, her large and rounded breasts held so wonderfully, her panties gripped by Mabel's broad hips and her tummy softly rounded. Mabel had a smooth and soft-skinned loveliness; she was voluptuous and desirable, and his girlfriend did not even get close to doing for him what Mabel had so recklessly done at the height of a tempestuous affair. It had sure been fun.
'I'll freshen up and then ride over to you, say six-thirty if I can get away from the job on time. Things haven't worked out with Abi so we're in the same place. C u later! D'
β₯
They kissed in greeting, just a brush of their lips, and Darryl met her wondering look.
Neither of them wanted to make the first move, the memories of all that they had succumbed to, some months ago and after Frank abandoned them the first time, still so livid in their mind's eye. And yet they could not keep from gazing at each other as if to challenge what they had both decided should happen after Frank had re-entered their lives, but Mabel's in particular.
A tempestuous affair between mother and son had ended, much to Mabel's relief, and he had moved out to live with his mates in a terraced house not so different from what had once been thought of as the family home.
He had fretted as he rode his Norton motorcycle over to Mabel's place. She would be living alone and this time he could only call in to be of help, to be a prop both emotionally and physically, he supposed.
"You won't take to the bottle again, will you?" he asked, the challenge in his tone only too clear. "I helped you through the last time when you did that."
"How could I forget!" she snapped. "We've been through all of that before, so I don't need any reminders."
"Steady on, Mabel," he said calmly. "I'm just saying how it was, then. And, even if he has gone again..."
"For good," she interrupted.
"Yes, for good, and if he has gone again then I reckon that you're in a better place than the last time."
"But you're not here. You've moved away, so I have no one to talk things through with like we did then." She sighed and gave him a baleful glance. "I'm sounding so needy aren't I?"
Darryl shrugged his broad shoulders as if that was an answer to what Mabel had just confessed to.
"I thought we had agreed that we had gone beyond all of this, me being the answer to what happens. We went as far as we could the last time around. Are you asking me for help again, in that way...to love with you so that you mend after what has happened, again?"
She touched his arm and it provoked him to step closer.
"What happened...some of it's my fault. I was angry that he left me the first time for a woman who ended it, predictably. When I said that, he went crazy and told me the reason why... I wouldn't let things rest, no matter how small the problem was." She sighed and then clenched her lips shut. "And then, that afternoon, when you came around I was angry again at how he treated you. I couldn't take that, say nothing about it, and soon we reckoned that we had run out of time together. He left me, not much later...a few days...and now here I am talking to you again, as we did the first time."
Daryl was seen to shrug off his thin leather biker's jacket and put it over the newel post of the stairs. "I had hoped that my barging in on you that afternoon didn't make things worse for you."
"Things were on the slide, darling." Mabel gripped his arm and felt the warmth of his skin to her attentive and demanding touch. "He was using me, or beginning to, when we heard you downstairs..."
She turned away and he followed her into the small kitchen that was spotlessly clean. The sight was in sharp contrast to how it had been some time ago and when Frank's desertion had happened the first time. Mabel had let things go and he'd picked her up, had done so in ways that defied everything that had gone before.
Darryl saw how Mabel's dress tightened on the swell of her breasts as she reached into a wall cupboard to grab two mugs. He gazed at the silken smoothness of her legs as the hem rode up over her thighs. He remembered only too clearly how it felt to have her warm flesh around his body as they humped. He shivered on remembering those times, also from the image of Frank lying between them as he took her.
"Who do you think you are to come barging in on us?" Frank had yelled. "You should be in your place, living with your pals!"
"I am, but I also think of this place as a home, too," he had answered angrily. "I'm sorry to have embarrassed the two of you. I'll get out."
"Wait, Darryl, darling!" Mabel had called out. She had been seen to cinch her dressing gown a little tighter around her naked body before she had rushed to restrain him, to keep him from leaving, but the sight of her going to him had only angered Frank further.
"Let him go, woman! He makes his life and we do the same!"
Mabel saw him shudder and met the dart of Darryl's eyes upon her as she woke from her daydream. "Here's your tea and don't think about him. I've gotten through before this and with your help."
"Thanks, it's a special brew," he answered and on feeling a moment's touch to his arm. He wondered, as he did so, whether Mabel would look to him again for moments of comfort.
"You're doing okay at work, I guess?" she asked in a flat voice.
"Yes, it's hard graft but it's fine. It's fun, even, and they want me to go on a course and learn some more. If I get through it will mean more dosh...and it will add to my work experience record. I can be a bit choosier about what I do next."
"That's great, darling." She leaned forward in her chair and reached out to touch his face. "I always knew that you'd make something of yourself. I guess me calling you all the time, or like I did today, gets in the way of you getting on..."