Suddenly, Heather heard the familiar squawk of a startled pheasant followed by the low buzz of his wings. She jumped to her feet and looked out of the window to see Gerry's Mazda parked in front of the cottage. He was early! She watched as he got out of the driver's door, opened the rear door to retrieve the jacket of his suit he'd hung up, and, with a swift manoeuvre copied from The West Wing, slipped it over his shoulders. Heather hurried down the stairs to the front door. She composed herself, still wearing only her scarlet lingerie, while Gerry hovered over the front door bell. It wouldn't do to be too hasty in opening the door, but on the other hand she didn't want to antagonise her neighbours more by leaving Gerry on the doorstep for too long.

At last, after counting to ten after Gerry first rang the doorbell and breathing slowly and deeply to compose herself and her nerves, Heather opened the door. She hoped that no neighbour could glimpse her in the underwear she wore specifically for Gerry's benefit.

"My gosh, Heather! You needn't have!" Gerry exclaimed when he saw her in her lace and silk outfit.

"For you, my love, nothing is too much," said Heather with a broad smile. "Come in! Come in! You're a bit earlier than you said. Do you want a cup of coffee?"

Gerry nodded. "It's been a long drive from Worcester," he said. "But I might just have clinched the deal. A coffee would do me the world of good!"

As he entered the cottage, he kissed Heather shyly on the cheek and followed her to the kitchen. He sat down on a stool and glanced at a photograph of Paula.

"Your daughter's at school today?" he asked with a kindly smile.

Heather nodded as she poured a cup of coffee, put in the milk and three sugars that Gerry liked, and handed it to him. "It's not the school holidays, as you know."

"No, of course not. I'd know if my two girls were off school," he laughed.

Heather leant against the washing machine, her long legs stockinged from her high-heeled shoes to the top of her thigh, and a bright square of Spring sun shining on her bare midriff. She sipped her coffee and studied Gerry with trepidation. Although she'd known him for well over a year and had got to know him very intimately indeed, perhaps more so than his wife or colleagues, she knew there were huge parts of him that were barred from her forever. He was a very ordinary looking man in many ways. Only just in his forties, filling out around the waist, and with a hair-line that was receding quite noticeably.

He took a tissue out of his pocket and wiped a sliver of sweat off his forehead.

"It's very hot driving, you know," he said apologetically.

Heather smiled. "Especially all that way! Was the motorway bad?"

As Gerry proceeded to give an account of his drive from Worcester and the tortuous A and B roads he'd navigated, Heather gathered her wits about her. Gerry always perspired when he visited. Heather knew that it was more his nerves than the temperature. He was worried about his wife discovering that he was seeing someone else, even someone who lived so far away. And he also felt very guilty. What would his daughters think?

When Heather had judged that both she and Gerry were sufficiently relaxed, she strode seductively across the kitchen, one impossibly long leg in front of the other, and smiled as Gerry became visibly more aroused by her presence. And it wasn't just that he perspired the more heavily: sweat trickling down his high temple and onto his reddened cheeks. He was getting more excited in another area that in a sense mattered much more.

She placed a hand on the front of his trousers. His penis was rock hard and a splendid seven inches of manhood it was too. He flinched slightly as Heather squeezed his testicles through the loose fabric of his trousers and the boxer shorts she knew he wore underneath. She kissed him tenderly on the forehead, which smelt quite distinctively of some Indian curry he'd no doubt been feasting on the night before.

"You seem ready for action," Heather remarked.

"It's your outfit!" Gerry protested. "You know how much I like silk and lace. And red as well! I love you, you know. No one else understands me so well."

Heather had heard his protestations of love many times before, but words were worthless with a family in tow. She pretended not to hear him, although it sometimes occurred to her that although Gerry was a sales rep and all that often implied, he probably wasn't that bad a father. And one who would probably get on quite well with Paula.

"Shush!" said Heather, placing a finger gently but firmly on Gerry's lips. "You probably don't have much time. Shall we go upstairs and make as much of the time we've got together as we can?"

"Yes. Yes, of course," said Gerry, taking off his jacket in preparation. He then folded it over his shoulder and loosened his tie as he followed Heather up the familiar staircase to her well-lit bedroom at the top of the stairs.

Heather was aware that the disrobing was often the most awkward part of her meetings with Gerry, so she put especial effort into making the ceremony as erotic and natural as possible. Thankfully, she didn't have to remove any of her own clothes. The split crotch of the panties ensured that this was not necessary, though she usually liked to throw them to one side at some point or other. She was able to concentrate her attention on Gerry's shirt, trousers and underpants. She was unhurried and sensual as she spread her fingers open on his hair-tangled stomach and eased his boxer shorts down his upper thighs, kissing his erect penis as she did so.

Soon he was naked and on his back on the bed, while Heather returned her mouth to his penis, not only her lips, but also her tongue and teeth, busy at keeping his penis erect, while her fingers, with their sensibly manicured nails, ensured that it didn't spend itself too soon in the process. The advice given in the women's magazines about suppressing premature ejaculation had proven their worth many times over, although nothing was as good as actual practice.

Gerry was well blessed. His penis was straight and stiff, no kink in it and the skin pulled off the glans completely and easily. His testicles were like eggs in size and shape, much like those in the fridge, but much more tender. Gerry would gasp whenever Heather squeezed them, but as he expected her to do it she did this every time. Just as she would also take each testicle into her mouth, closing her lips around it, while her hand continued to grip his penis, and run her tongue through the long scrotum hairs and over the strange tubes that would channel his seed to his member. But not yet. And not while he was still unprotected.

It was a very explicitly illustrated book that Heather managed to trace on the internet that taught her the skill she had now perfected of taking a condom out of its wrapper, putting it onto her partly opened mouth where she kept it in place by sucking the rubber in, and then with her mouth, sliding the condom down the length of Gerry's erect penis, using a single hand to secure it in place. Heather had learnt that there were different size condoms appropriate for different men, and that Gerry required a very average sized condom for a good fit. She wondered whether there actually were many men who required the larger sized condoms, but she had learnt that there was certainly a need for the smaller models. A good fit was a necessity and any looseness was very dangerous indeed.

Once protected, Gerry could now enter her. For reasons of comfort more than anything else, Heather slipped off her lacy red panties and dropped them to the floor. Gerry had once complained that a condom made him less sensitive and wondered whether he could make love without it, but Heather was very strict on such matters. Whatever his protestations of love, what would they be worth if something unpleasant or unexpected happened as a result of their conjoining?

Although very different in most other ways, Gerry was much like Roger in his lovemaking. He preferred making love from the front so that he could look down at Heather's face beneath his outstretched supporting arms. He liked to thrust in slowly and steadily at first, pulling his penis almost free from her vagina and then plunging it deep inside again. He liked to gradually build up his thrusts into a faster and more urgent rhythm, which was Heather's cue to vent forth those urgent whimpering gasps for which she was so grateful there were no party walls between her and her neighbours' cottages.

Heather wasn't sure that she was actually faking it. She certainly faked the orgasm, but then she did that with Roger as well. Orgasms came rarely for her and most often when she was pleasuring herself. The cries of ecstasy and joy, however, that signified orgasm had become such a routine part of her lovemaking, Heather wondered whether they had just become something as natural as the thrusts she found herself reciprocating without ever planning to do so.

Another feature Gerry had in common with Roger was his love of anal intercourse, but this was a privilege Heather rarely granted. It was something best kept for special occasions. She worried about it ever since she read that article in Cosmopolitan about the long-term health risks of too frequent penetration. Perhaps if Gerry were less well-endowed and the risk less great, she might have thought differently.

So when Gerry's finger probed her anus from behind, his penis thrusting vigorously at the front, Heather let the finger enter as far as the second joint, but squeezed her buttocks tight to make further penetration impossibly difficult. She then orchestrated her thrusts and her ecstatic cries to the climax she could see Gerry was pretty much on the verge of achieving.

As he did with his own grunts and gasps. And like all men, the moment of release was fairly obvious, although his penis didn't automatically collapse after releasing semen into the condom's nipple.

Afterwards, Heather and Gerry lay together on the sweat-sodden sheets, soon to be changed, Gerry's arm around Heather's shoulders, while the sales rep talked about his wife, his daughters, and the deal he was hoping to close in Shrewsbury. This was different to Roger, who'd normally doze after they'd made love, but then Gerry would soon have to get back into his Mazda and onto the road again.

Heather kissed Gerry quite tenderly on the cheek before she opened the front door to the cottage to let him out. He made his usual protestations that he'd be back as soon as he could and that he loved her.

"Well, just ring when you can," said Heather with a smile.

"I will. I will. It's been... it's been wonderful seeing you again. I can hardly wait till next time!"

Heather wandered to the living room to watch Gerry drive off in his Mazda. She still wore her scarlet outfit with the panties back on, but she'd soon change into something else. It carried rather too obviously the smell of recent sex.

Heather returned to the kitchen and looked out at the garden where a goldfinch was perched on the bird table and a host of sparrows were pecking at the seeds on the ground. No pheasants this time.

She looked at the notes in her hand. As always, Gerry had been more generous than he needed to be. And even though they'd not had anal sex, he insisted on paying for it. Heather put the money in a jar in the kitchen and glanced at her desk diary. Three more appointments this afternoon: two regulars and a new one. As always, it was the new one she was most anxious about, but Phil and Jeremy would be just as demanding as Gerry.

Heather sipped her coffee. She'd have to change the sheets and put on a fresh outfit, perhaps a black or a white number from Scarlet Dream's catalogue. And then back to work.

Heather glanced at the school photograph of her daughter in the frame by the kitchen window. She sighed.

Oh, the sacrifices the single working mother has to make!